Advice to a Son

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13

ADVICE TO A SON

FRANCIS OSBORNE ^^

CA -i

A NEW EDITION

* •,

WITH AN INTBODVCTION AND NOTES BY

HIS HONOUR JUDGE

EDWARD ABBOTT PARRY

LONDON
DAVID NUTT, 270-271, STRAND

1896

ni

CO

o

INTRODUCTION

<

4

\

Although Francis Osborne's Advice to a Son has
been reprinted in this century, the public seem to V

have called for no further edition of his complete -

works since 1722. In his own day he must have
made a considerable mark, not only among students
but also among contemporary men of letters.
Aubrey speaks of him as the friend of Hobbes, ^

and Dr. Blackbourne confirms this by setting out
a list of the patrons and friends of Hobbes, among
whom we find "Francis Osborne, Esq., whose
writings are sufficiently known," placed between
" Mr. Samuel Butler who wrote that admirable poem
entitled Hvdihras " and ** Edmund Waller of Beacons-
field."*, Pepys in later years studied the Advice to
a Son with affectionate particularity and in that
strain of homely vanity which is one of the greatest
charms of the Diary records, October 19, 166 1,
*' I not being neat in clothes, which I find a great
fault in me, could not be so merry as otherwise, and
at all times I am and can be, when I am in good

* Life of HobheSf 1750, p. xxv.

392860

iv INTRODUCTION

habitt, which makes me remember my father Osborne's
rule for a gentleman to spare in all things rather
than in that." And again, Jan. 27, 1663-4, details
a literary conversation with Sir William Petty at
a CoflEeehouse, " who in discourse is, methinks, one
of the most rational men that ever I heard speak
with a tongue," saying, ''that in all his life
these three books were the most esteemed and
generally cried up for wit in the world — Beligio
^ Medici, Osborne's Advice to a Son, and ffvdibras.'*
But the taste for Osborne's writings, perhaps
naturally, gave place to better things. Swift in
the Tatler ranks Osborne with some others, who
** being men of the Court and affecting the phrases
then in fashion, are often either not to be understood
or appear perfectly ridiculous." While Dr. Johnson,
being moved by Boswell's e3qpression of liking for
his works, sums him up in one contemptuous phrase :
" A conceited fellow. Were a man to write so now,
the boys would throw stones at him." Boswell, how-
ever, is not ready to accept this summary criticism
of his " favourite author."

When one has formed a liking for a book, quaint
and strange in its style, direct and original in its
thought, and attractive in its old-world interests,
and when, moreover, one lias spent many hours in
its company and got to love the good in it and A

cease to be amazed at the evil, as though it were
an old friend, it is no easy task to write anything
critical of its contents or endeavour to appraise with
any accuracy its right to be reprinted at the present

INTRODUCTION v

day. Moreover, it would be stepping aside from
the limits I have set myself in compiling this
Introduction to intrude upon the readers of Francis
Osborne's Advice to a Son any critical apologia from
his editor.

Being far removed from the time in which it
was written, the reader of to-day will find it easier
to criticise Osborne's writing with sane discretion
than those who admired or hated his style in the
past. But two things must not be lost sight of
in an honest endeavour to appreciate his book ;
the character of the author, and the society in which
he lived. Osborne was, as we shall see, the younger
son of a gentleman, a man above his fellows in
ability and insight, who never received the reward
of office or acquired riches. His practical common
sense and want of good fortune made him to some
extent an opportunist in morality and cynical in his ^
estimate of mankind. He poses before us as ''a
Father wearied (and therefore possibly made wise)
by experience." He writes complainingly as a
man neglected by Fortune, believing himself worthy
of nobler things than those to which he had attained.
He sometimes impresses on his son the necessity of
unworthy actions, writing as he does for a young
man in whose worldly success he takes a passionate
interest. He has seen for himself the miserable
position of the poor dependent in a wealthy house-
hold, has experienced the impossibility of gaiuing
place and wealth without Court influence, and the
improbability of gaining Court influence without

INTRODUCTION

aniug, enei^ and self-reEtraint. But while he
wrna to enforce mnch of which we mast disapprove,
are ie in several of these passages an olmoTis
lincerity of evil, which leads as not to take offence
» easily. He langhs at the folly of maoHnd by
ring worldly advice that all mast condemn when
iding it in the atady, although we may act npon
in every-day life. Thus he reproves the world,
id to those displeased with the earlier chapters of
s book, who are desirous of obtaining a clearer
d brighter view of the author, I would commend
)erasal of the Conclusion, in which he casts aside
I worldly ideas and cynic utterances, and in a few
rsonal words to his son cancels many pf^es of
wholesome advice in one short, eloquent, and
ictical prayer : " To conclude, let us Serve God
bh what Reverence we are able and do all the Good
I can, making as little unnecessary work for
ipentance as is possible : and the Mercy of our
javenly Father supply all our Defects in the Son
his Love. Amen."

Perhaps he will most oSend the modem reader
his chapter on Love and Marriage. Here with
B pompous wisdom of a foolish old man he railB
ainst women and their ways in hopes thereby to
itrain his son from a love match ruinous to worldly
OBpects. Woman he says is " a silly creature set
- the Institutes of Nature in a far inferior Class of
jrfection" to man; and he satisfies his contempt
r the clergy and the fair sex at one blow, by noting
ith a savi^e chuckle, that " the wily Priests are so

INTRODUCTION vi

tender of their own conveniences as to forbid alL
marriage to themselves upon as heavy a penalty as
they do Poligamy unto others." But if marriage
has to be, then his son is not to marry an '' unen-
dowed Beauty," still less a '* celebrated Beauty " ;.
and " tho' nothing can wholly disengage Marriage
from the Inconveniences" he portrays, "yet they
are best palliated under a great Estate." Nor does
he admit that the intention to perpetuate the family
name is a sufficient excuse for marriage, it being, he
says, " the poorest way of Immortalising that can be,,
and as natural to a Gobler as a Prince." Indeed, he
finds it difficult to say anything better of wives, in &
note to his Women Beaders, than to tell them that
they are but *'the best of Servants." Not to excuse
this sort of writing but to understand how it came
to be written, one must not forget such love stories
as that of Dr. Donne and the poverty and dependence
to which they led. An ill-advised match of a young
man of position but without means, was a more
serious affair in the seventeenth century than it is
to-day, resulting generally in a life of dependence
for the wife and children, and a greatly decreased
chance of place — the gentleman's only livelihood —
for the man himself. The poor relations of the
seventeenth century did not starve, but they had a
bad time of it.

There is much of interest in what Osborne writes
concerning Travel, Government, and Eeligion, but it
is in the chapter on Studies that the personal
character of the author most betrays itself. He

viii INTRODUCTION

stands out a practical man of the world, his selfish
opportunist sentiments struggling with more liberal
and righteous views ; a lover of freedom, but at the
same time a Courtier, since only at Court was there
I)ossibility for a young man to attain material
advancement. His literary tastes run counter to the
age in which he lived. They are his own, and he is
proud of them* " Huge Volumes^ like the Ox roasted
whole at Bartholomew Fair, may proclaim plenty of
Labour and Invention," but find in him no admirer.
He expresses open contempt for the " mean conceits
and improbable opinion of Antiquity J' History, he
warns his son, is probably little better than Bomance,
and the Poets are " like Ships, of use only for Pleasure^
and so richer in Trimming than in Ladingr He is
not an extravagant lover of books and thinks good
Company is " a hetter Eefmer of the Spirits than
ordinary Books.^* But he is wise enough to warn his
son that " a few Books well studied and thoroughly
digested nourish the Understanding more, than
hundreds but gargled in the Mouth, as ordinary
Students use." His practical nature rebels against
his son becoming a mere bookworm, and he begs
him not to neglect the honest Improvement of
his Estate in ''an over-passionate prosecution of
Leanung » FinaUy, he snms up his practical
views on the worldly value of book-learning in
the terse sentence, " Experience is a better TvJtor than
Buchanan!^

Passing from literature, he recommends the pur-
suit of Physick. *' The Intricacy of the study " he

INTRODUCTION ix

takes not to be great, and lie recognises its social
value. He condemns Musick as "so unable to
refund for the time and cost required to be perfect
therein, as I cannot think it worthy any serious
endeavour," All his powers of praise, however, are
reserved for Mathematicks, which he exalts as "the
only knowledge we can on Earth gain likely to
attend us to Heaven." His practical mind rebels
against the study of any learning *' that moves upon
the tottering basis of conjecture," and he commands
his son to sit at the feet of the Mathematicks the
Queen of Truth, that imposeth nothing upon her
Subjects, but what she proves due to Belief by in-
fallible Demonstration."

It is not surprising to find that he is no Sports-
man in our modem phrase. Manly exercises he
approves, preferring Wrestling and Vaulting to
Fencing, and regarding Swimming as dangerous and
of doubtful service, for, he says, though it "may
save a man in case of necessity, it loseth many when
practised in wantonness by increasing their con-
fidence." Of Early Eising, Eating, Drinking and
Tobacco he has many healthy things to say; but
there is a tone of sane and wholesome contempt for
the faddist in these words of warning to his son : " He
that always regulates his Diet by the strict Eules of
Physick makes his Life no less uncomfortable to
himself than unsociable unto others." His moral
precepts are, it must be admitted, often repugnant
to our modern righteousness. A breach of the
seventh Commandment, for instance, gives hiTn

X INTRODUCTION

more uneasiness on account of its daring than
because of its sinfulness ; and there is some-
thing of the spirit of the old comedies in his
advice to his son if discovered in any such
delinquency: "Neither can you, if questioned by
her Husband, use, with Hope of Victory, any
sharper Weapon than BepentaTice sheathed in a modest
Sxcicse"

Turning now from further temptation of stringing
together Osborne's epigrams, to the duller, more
diflScult, and more responsible task of setting down
the few facts that are known about the man himself,
it will be remembered by readers of the letters of
Dorothy Osborne — wife of Sir William Temple and
niece of Francis Osborne — ^that the Osbornes were a
family of ancient lineage and power in the country
as far back as the early part of the sixteenth
century.

The earliest record of the Osborne family is of
their coming from the north to settle at Purleigh in
Essex, where a Peter Osborne, Esq., resided in 1442,
Of his great-grandsons, Peter, born in 1521 — Francis
Osborne's grandfather — ^was a man of considerable
note. He was keeper of the Privy Purse to Edward
VI., who granted him and his heirs the office of
Treasurer's Remembrancer in the Exchequer ; and is
said to have been a " man of great understanding
and very active and zealous for the Reformation." *
In Elizabeth's reign he was one of the High Com-

* Morant's Essex, i. 323.

INTRODUCTION xi

missioners for Ecclesiastical affairs, and she showed
her appreciation of him by granting him the manor
of South Pambridge in Essex with the advowson of
the church.

Sir John Osborne, Peter's son and Francis's
father, was the first Osborne of Chicksands. He,
t6o, was Treasurer's Bemembrancer, and in 1619 was
made by James I. one of the Commissioners that
were employed about the household and the navy.
He settled at Chicksands in Bedfordshire, and being,
as Fuller says,* a lover of learned and godly men,
he not only bought and restored to the church the
rectory of Havmes near Chicksands which had
formerly been alienated, but also "built thereon
from the ground a fair house which he furnished
with fitting utensils," and this, with the income of
the living for two former years, he presented to the
celebrated preacher Thomas Brightman, a man of
noted piety, greatly beloved by his patron. Here
Brightman died on August 24, 1607, being taken
suddenly ill while driving with Sir John Osborne in
his coach.

Sir John had five sons, Peter — ^the father of
Dorothy Osborne — who succeeded his father as
Treasurer's Eemembrancer, and for many years
gallantly defended Castle Cornet in Guernsey for
the king; Christopher, Thomas and Eichard, of
whom I can learn nothing ; and lastly, Francis, the
author of the book before us.

Francis was born — ^probably at Chicksands — on

* Fuller's Church History ^ Book x. Sect. 3.

xii INTRODUCTION

the 26th September, 1593* He speaks in his
Memoirs of Qiieen Elizabeth, of his life beginning
"under this beloved Princess," and of his grand-
father and father enjoying "a quiet, happy and
plentifiil fortune under her." There seems little
doubt of his early days being spent at Chicksands
from his account of the Gunpowder Plot, in which he
alludes to Thomas Brightman as then (1605) being
maintained by his father under his roof, and ex-
presses thankfulness that the conspirators were
unsuccessful, as the presence of Mr, Brightman in
the household would in other case have made it
" very unlucky for our Family to escape."

The very opening passage in his Advice to a Son
speaks of the tender care of his father for his educa-
tion, and tells us how he was kept at home as " one
of my young Masters," whereby he lost the valuable
discipline of school life. Anthony Wood speaks of
his grandfather and father as Puritans — doubtless
they were strong Protestants — and this home edaca-
tion, coupled with Brightman's teaching, may have
had some influence with him when he had to choose
in later days the side of the Parliament while his
brother Sir Peter was fighting valiantly for the king.
It is a sad commentary on the family life of that
date that, as far as I have seen, in the many letters of
Sir Peter, and in those of his daughter Dorothy, no
mention is made of Francis, and almost the only
occasion on which Francis alludes to his own family
is in the dedication of the second part of Advice to a
Son to his brother-in-law, wherein he hints at the

INTRODUCTION xiii

little love that is lost between himself and those of
hia own blood.

As soon as he was of age he *' became a servant of
the Pembrochian family, and at length Master of
the Horse to that most noble Count William Earl
of Pembroke."* He himself, in the Traditional
Memoirs on the JReign of King JameSyf tells us a little
of his life in London when he first left home : how
" it was the fashion of those times, and did so con-
tinue till these (wherein not only the Mother but her
Daughters are ruined) for the principal Gentry, Lords,
Courtiers and men of all Professions not merely
Mechanick, to meet in St. Paul's Church by eleven,
and walk in the middle Isle till twelve; and after
dinner, from three to six ; during which time some
discoursed of Business, others of News. Now, in
regard of the universal commerce, there happened
little that did not first or last arrive here: And I
being young and wanting a more advantageous
imployment did during my aboad in London, which
was three fourth parts of the year, associate myself
at those hours with the choicest company I could
pick out, amongst such as I found most inquisitive
after affairs of State ; being then myself in a daily
attendance of a hope (though a rotten one) of a
future preferment." f Whatever may have been his
hope of preferment it came to nothing, and there is

* Wood's Athenas, i. 706.

t Par. 20.

:!: This must have been about the year 1610, for he mentions a
story then current about the young Prince Henry who died in
1612.

xiv INTRODUCTION

often in his writing the disappointed tone of a man
unsatisfied with fortune. '* Honourable Persons," he
writes, '* like too great fires, may warm and comfort
such as are content only to serve them at a distance ;
but blast the Parts and consume the Fortunes of
those are found to attend them in any nearer
Eelations ;" and again, in the same letter, '' I remain
in so high a feud with Greatness as if I did not find
{Lord) in my Daily Prayers I should not name it in
relation to Servant without Detestation ; the which
Lord had I served as I ought, the other would have
been no more known to me than Leopards, Wolves
and Tygers, seldom seen by us but in Grates and
Pictures." *

At a later period he must have had access to the
Court, for he mentions a conversation he had with
Archy the King's Jester, and speaks of the mask
and other spectacles at the Court, and the folly of
those who eagerly sought invitations to them.f
"Nor could I," he adds, "that had none of their
share that passed through the incommodious access,
count myself any great gainer (who did ever find
some time before the grand night to view the Scene)
after I had reckoned my attendance and sleep : there
appearing little observable besides the Company,
and what Imagination might conjecture from the
placing of the Ladies, and the immense charge and
universal vanity in clothes, &c."

He seems to have been in London in 1628, and tells

* Letter to William Draper, in Osborne's Works, 1722 edition,
"f Memoirs of James /., par. 23.

INTRODUCTION xv

a curious story of one Savil, who ** finding how accept-
able the news was wherever it came," pretended
that he was the man who had murdered the Duke of
Buckingham. Whereupon the Star Chamber fined
him a considerable sum, " to which the Wisdom,
equity, and justice of that Court added, because
they wanted powers to hang him, this Corporal
punishment, viz. : That he should be whipped from
the Fleet where he lay prisoner, to the Pillory in
Westminster Palace Yard there to be for two hours
nailed, after to lose one Ear, have his nose slit, and
then to be branded in the forehead — ^all which, as
long as the Bowels of humanity would give me
leave, I looked upon."

Beyond these scanty allusions to his doings, I can
find nothing about his career until 1 641, when
Wood says "he ran with the time, having been
puritanically educated (and) had public employ-
ments then and under Oliver conferred upon him."
In the second part of Advice to a Son he refers to the
father of Felton having '* Tmployment under mine
in the office of Remembrance," which looks as though
his father or brother had at some time given him a
post in their office rather than that he had received
anything from the Parliament. The only official
employment that I can find he obtained under the
Commonwealth was that he became " one of the
seven for the countie and city of Oxon, that was a
judge as to all prisons and persons committed to
any prisons in comitatu vel civitate Oxon 1653."*

* Wood's Life, ed. Clark, i. 185,

xvi INTRODUCTION

Anthony Wood, in his Athence OxonicTisis, also
mentions that Francis Osborne ^'in his last days
lived in Oxon purposely to print certain books of his
composition that then lay by him, and to have an eye
on his son John whom he got by the favour of the
Parliamentarian Visitors to be Fellow of All Souls
College, 1648."* This date seems to be incorrect,
and the method by which John Osborne obtained
his Fellowship is set out at length in the Visitors*
Begister.f The matter is of sufficient interest to
relate here, as John Osborne was the person for whom
the Advice to a Son was written.

Francis Osborne had married Anna, sister of
William Draper, Esq., of Netherworton in the north
of Oxfordshire, and speaks of him as his '' dear
brother " and one whose love had far exceeded that
of his own blood. He had three daughters and one
son, John, for whom the Advice was written. Draper
was a prominent man in 1647, as a "new made
Justice and a Committee-man for the County." J He
is spoken of by Wood as an ''Oliverian Colonel,"
but I have not found what part, if any, he played in
the Wars. He appears to have been a man of
importance in the county, and was Sheriff in 1655,
and again in i6S7.§ When the Parliamentary
Visitors were appointed, on May ist, 1647, by an

* Wood's Athence, i. 706.

t Burrow's BegUter of the University of Oxfardt 1647-1658
Camden Society.
X History and Antiquities of Oxford, ed. 1796, ii. 511.
§ Davenport's Sheriffs of Oxfordshire.

INTRODUCTION xvii

ordiBance passed by the Lords and Commoiis for the
visitation and reformation of the University of
Oxford, the several Colleges and Halls of the same,
William Draper was one of the original Visitors, and
from the constant appearance of his signature in the
Register, it is clear that he took an earnest part in
the work. . To provide for one's relations by means of
gifts of offices and places was in those days a pious
duty. It cannot be set down to Draper's discredit
that one of his earliest official acts was to get a
resolution passed by the Visitors on June loth, i648-9>
to this efiFect : *' Ordered : that Jo. Osborne, kinsman
to Mr. Draper, shall have the first SchoUars place
that shall be voyd in the guift of the Visitors ; " nor
was it the natural consequence of such a resolution
that it should bring the Visitors into opposition with
the Parliamentary Committee. But so it happened.
John Osborne, on August 6th, 1648, is entered as
demy at Magdalen College, where he remained until
January 165 1, about which date the Visitors seem to
have given him a Fellowship at All Souls in the
place of one Dr. John Wainwright. Thereupon the
Parliamentary Committee in London, taking no
notice of the Visitors' appointment, override it by
giving a Mr. Edmund Brice of Jesus College
the same Fellowship, and a somewhat angry corre-
spondence takes place between the Parliamentary
Committee in London and the Visitors at Oxford
upon the subject. John Osborne only matriculated
on November 19th, 1650, and in the same year
Brice appears to have taken his B.A. There is no

b

»WJ?^V'.''''TV

xviii INTRODUCTION

doubt that Oabome was very young for such a
position, but it is not suggested in the correspondence
that the Parliamentary Committee superseded him as
being unfit to fill it.

The Visitors, in a letter to the Committee dated
January 17th, 1650-1, and signed by Draper among
others, speak of Osborne as "a man everie way
acoomplisht both with learning and other accom-
pUshments fit for any preferment," and threaten
resignation ^^ to avoyd the scorn and contempt that
will be put upon them " by this arbitrary action of
the Committee. They suggest as a compromise,
that Mr. Brice, " who is a gentleman wee all respect
and would be glad to accommodate him in any thinge
that may not be a prejudice to others," be put into a
Fellowship in the place of Mr. " Germy," who they
were credibly informed was married. The Parlia-
mentary Committee are obdurate, and write back
on January 23rd, 1650-1, refusing the suggested
compromise, and denying the Visitors' right to ap-
point Osborne ; and on Jan. 23rd, 1650-1, the Visitors
*' humbly conceive that in electing Mr. Osborne into
Dr. Wainwright's place in All Souls wee did therein
according to our Commission, and hope that this
honourable Committee will not make voyd that our
election so much to the prejudice of the young man
who is well deserving, not only in respect of qualifi-
cations but also in that hee has been very serviceable
to the Parliament." Even this does not seem to have
moved the honourable Committee, and the Visitors
escape from a dilemma by finding that Dr. Lloyd,

INTRODUCTION xix

a Fellow of All Soals, " has borne arms against the
Parliament in the late Warrs and is a non-snbmitter
to the Visitation by Authority of Parliament besidea
his total discontinuance from the CoUedge for divers
years past." These things, although they had ap-
parently been excused up to this date, are sufficient
to sacrifice Dr. Lloyd in favour of young Osborne,
and the quarrel between the Committee and the
Visitors is patched up by Brice being admitted
to Wainwright's place, and Osborne to Lloyd's place.
There John Osborne remained until 1654, when he
took his B.O.L. degree. In 1657 he was called to
the bar by the honourable Society of the Inner
Temple, in whose records he is spoken of as ''the
son and heir of Francis of North Fambridge, Essex,
arm,"* which puts his identity beyond doubt. He
must have been a practising and successful barrister
and a man of eminence in his profession. He
attained the dignity of Prime Serjeant-at-Law
in Ireland, 1680-1686, and in 1689 ^^^ made a
Bencher of the Inner Temple. In the same year
he was made one of the Sling's Counsel in Ireland.
He was deprived of his office of Prime Serjeant in
1686, restored to office by William III., and again
dismissed in 1692. In 1691 it is known that he
declined the office of Chief Justice of the Common
Pleas in Ireland.t The editor of the 1722 edition
of Osborne's works mentions him as "dying in the
honourable post of King's Serjeant-at-Law in the

* Foster's Alumni Oxanienns.

t Lattreirs Brief Edcstion^ ii. 617.

I
I

XX INTRODUCTION

kingdom of Ireland," and says that ho married a
daughter of William Draper, presumably his first
cousin.

When Francis Osborne settled in Oxford is not
clear, but here he published the first part of his
Advice to a Son in 1656, where it was " printed by
H. Hall, printer to the University, for Thomas
Robinson." The book seems to have attained a
wide and immediate popularity, being greedily
bought up and admired in Oxford. especiaUy by
young scholars, and within two years there are said
to have been five impressions or editions of it.*
The views expressed in it created great consternation
among the old-fashioned pastors and masters of
that day, and by an order, 27th July 1658, of the
Vice-Chancellor, Dr. John Conant, the book was
suppressed. Wood, in his history of Oxford, gives
an interesting account of this.f '^By several
complaints of certain country ministers to the
Vice-Chancellor and several Heads of Colleges that
the book Advice to a Son lately published by Francis
Osborne, Esq., did instil principles of Atheism into
young gentlemen, he this day commanded all the
Stationers of Oxford not to sell any more copies of
that book. He was once in the mind to have the
book publicly burned, but being dissuaded from it
the copies afterwards did sell more than formerly
to the great benefit of the Stationer that printed
them." This did not in any way prevent the issue

* Wood's AthenaSf i, 706.

t Wood's History, ed. 1796, ii 684.

INTRODUCTION xxi

of a second part of Advice to a Son in the same year
1658, which, like most sequels of this kind, neither
deserved nor attained the success of the original,
and Wood cannot tell us whether it ever reached
a second impression. That the Advice to a Son
created interest in readers outside the walls of
Oxford is clear from a perusal of a strange volume
by John Heyden, the astrologer, entitled Advice to
a Dattghter, in opposition to Advice to a Son, &c., by
Bagenius Theodidactus. This was published prior
to 1658, when one Thomas Peck took up the cudgels
for Francis Osborne in a counter-pamphlet, bearing
the curious title "Advice to Balaams Ass, or Momus
Catechised, in answer to a certain scurrilous and
abusive scribbler one John Heyden, author of
Advice to a Daughter, by T. P. Gent." Heyden's
rebutter took the form of a second edition of the
Advice to a Daughter, "with a word of advice to
T. P.," which answer to Peck is civilly entitled
"Thomas Peck, Counsellor, examined, turned over
the bar and sent to Bedlam for his madness. The
Bull of Basan Chained." In 1658, besides the second
part of Advice to a Son, were published in London the
author's Memoirs of Queen Elizaheth and James /.,
by quotation from which in popular histories,
Francis Osborne is known to-day — when known at
all — to the reading public. Of his other works, a
full list appears at the end of this volume, and
it is not necessary to refer to them at length.
The Advice to a Son and the Mewmrs seem to have
been largely read in the seventeenth century and

xxii INTRODUCTION

early in the eighteenth, and editions of his works
were published in 1673, and again in 1700 and 1722.
As evidence of the importance attached, by those
who differed from his views, to Osborne's writings, it
is interesting to note that the edition of his works
published in 1673 was on March 13th, 1676, brought
before the House of Lords as a seditious and treason-
able publication. The treason and sedition com-
plained of is set out in the House of Lords Calendar
thus : * '' Denouncing a monarchy and saying that
the Commonwealth is the best Government; that
men in just government resemble horses that are far
less restive when linked together in a team : that no
people endowed with a natural desire of being happy
would admit the prince of a beggarly nation to rule
over them, however just his claim: that these
objections owned a countenance stem enough in the
opinion of many to face the entrance of the king :
that the Stuarts suborn principal speakers of
Parliament : that princes are religious only to secure
their own safety, but esteem it a mere accident where
reasons of State drive on a bargain^ that kings as
history teaches may be as safely destroyed as pre-
served." This edition was printed by one Eobert
White and sold by Samuel Meam, who was Warden
of the Stationers' Company. One Captain John
Seymour was the complainant, and there were
counter-charges made against him by Meam, who
accused him of starting the prosecution out of spite
to the Stationers' Company. There were constant

* Higt. Record Commission^ 9th Report. H. of L. Cal., p. 75b.

INTRODUCTION xxiii

appearances before a committee of the House, but
no recorded result of the proceedings. It is pro-
bable, however, that the conduct of Seymour and the
peril in which their Warden had placed himself led
the Warden and his friends in 1678 to order and
devise new rules and orders for the well-governing
of the Society of the mystery or art of Stationers.
These rules refer to the creating of unlicensed
presses, such as that which Seymour was charged
with having used, and the printing of unlicensed
books and pamphlets contrary to the recent Act of
Parliament, and lay down a code of stringent rules
against erecting, except by leave of the Society,
'^ any private press, commonly called a ' press in the
hole,' " attaching thereto penalties, fines, and rewards
to informers.

In the 1722 edition of Francis Osborne's works
there are to be found copies of thirteen letters
written by Francis Osborne to his brother-in-law,
Colonel William Draper, or to his ** Sister Draper."
These are printed in the first volume of the book
and are not referred to in the title-page or contents
of the volume. At the commencement of the second
volume is a short life of Francis Osborne, containing
some particulars not elsewhere printed. The editor of
this edition — who remains anonymous— appears to
have written to the clergyman at Netherworton, who
sent him '^ about a dozen letters, some of which are
made imperfect by Time and tumbling up and
down," a transcript from Francis Osborne's tomb-
stone, and an epitaph of which he writes : '' I choose

xxiv INTRODUCTION

to give it from his own handwriting, which by
chance I found." What has become of these
documents I can by no means learn, nor have I been
able to discover any further personal relics of our
author than these few letters, from which, however,
something can be gleaned of his later history, and
they seem for that purpose to be worth printing
almost at length.

They bear dates, if any, varying from 1653-4 to
1658, and are with one exception written from
London to Oxford. One of the earlier letters (un-
dated but written in his wife's lifetime) seems to
point to a visit which he and his wife are to pay to
Oxford when, if possible, he is to escape the worry
of the removal, and with true literary seliBshness
leave the trouble of it to his wife. The letter runs
thus:

« Dbab Brotheb,

*' My wife presents her service to you, my sister, and
all yours desiring the deferring coming any day after Monday
in Easter week ; expecting in the meantime a cart to carry
the things. And now since you are pleased to afford so
candid an Interpretation to my Politicks I am inoouraged to
give you the trouble of a small Plot concerning myself.
Next Week being likely to be very 'tedious to me that
(though ever an unhappy Wanderer) did never delight in
packing, I would desire you as moved out of your own
Groodness, to send little Broum over with Forster, or any
quiet horse else, to rescue me out of the Dust on Thursday
or Friday next, provided it may be done with no prejudice to
your Business. But this you must keep from your sisters
with as much care as the Dutch treaty which is said to go on
invisibly.''

INTRODUCTION xxv

There are one or two letters of small personal or
public interest which may be passed over, bringing
us to two letters dated August 14th, evidently 1657,
written to his brother-in-law and his wife respec-
tively (whom he always addresses '* brother" and
'* sister") referring to the death of his wife, which
must have taken place suddenly at about that date.
They seem to have been written from Kilden
(Kelvedon in Essex), where he was then living, and
may be set down without further comment :

*' Good Bbotheb,

" This sudden and to me most unfortunate accident
hath made me uncertain what to resolve ; though I am
peremptory, no less out of the Experience I have of the
Treachery of Servants than Dolesomness (sic) of living with-
out her, (that prized my content equal if not above her own,)
not to stay here. My heart is set upon Oxford where I hope
to find some Estimation if not Content, and in the meantime
incouraged by former favours and the kind Invitation you
gave at your being in this doleful House, I have above all
Place fixed upon Nether Worton for my second Bemove :
presuming, if I should prove intolerable to you, I were not far
from that Place I am confident I can live in with as much
Content as my age and condition is capable of.

" I am now upon putting off all which I hope will pay my
debts, being no more than the Hundred pounds you are privy
to and what this burial doth cost me ; wherefore out of all
doubt of bringing more trouble to any Place I come to but
what resides in my Infirmities which I shall desire to temper,
this is all an unsteady Head can afford you but an humble
suit to return an answer with your best Advice to your
unfortunate brother and Servant,

"Fe. Osbornb."

xxvi INTRODUCTION

^ I thought it most impossible for anything this world
could afford to have given me that delight I find in yours ;
which I intend to keep by me as one of the Strongest
Receipts I ever had against the Malignity of Fortune, who^ I
perceive by it, is no unjuster a giver than a taker away.
Thus between an Afltonishment at so much goodness in this
Iron Age and the Contemplation of my present Condition, I
stand 60 perplexed as I dare not undertake such a task he
cannot but be liable to who should endeavour the proportion-
ing a Thanks to so great and unmerited a Favour ; Where-
fore I shall return to my present condition ^hich is still to
detain me in this abominable place with a dull expectation of
Chapmen, out of whom I apprehend small Hope of Deliverance^
nor shall I pass without some weeks Trial what London can
afford to the lessening the small score of days I am so
miserable as to have still upon my account, which I could
wish to sum up there— or here where Death is familiar ; and
not by coming to you give him occasion to visit a family
where, in relation to you or my dear Sister, he cannot appear
without horror to your friends and pity in your greatest
enemies. These considerations do not afSict me, as I could,
like an Anchorite, dig my own Grave and bury myself,
desiring no more magnificent a Monument than the Con-
tinuance of your Love.''

After this, his one idea in life seems to be to get tb
Oxford, but things move slowly with him. Rewrites,
20th of October 1657, from some lodgings in Tower
Street, of his reason for not accepting his brother's
invitation and of his life and position in London :

'' It is A duty from me to you and my dear Sister often to
repeat my thanks for your kind Invitation, which nothing
but my perpetual pain of the Stone could obstruct my
acceptance of. Now in the absence of State news, as dead to
me as Herrings or Pilchards, I shall be bold to tell you I

INTRODUCTION xxvii

am become a Prodigy, and if my Picture were drawn might
possibly draw Pence with a Puppet play. The truth is many
desire my Company which I out of tediousness or Discretion
avoid ; only I am not unlikely, if able, to accept of a gentle-
man's invitation to Ohelsea for fresh air. My Landlord to
me is incomparable because I am able to fathom him, but my
Landlady is inscrutable to anything but profit; and by
shifting so often in wantonness is now fain to entertain all
Comers, no small Liconvenience I I am content upon
Bobinson's Lnportimity to affix my name to this 6th Edition
he is about, by which all Claims wlQ be cut off. There is
another piece of mine ready to peep abroad, but that Mr.
Wood, my Midwife, is so taken up with raising an estate in
Ireland as he cannot attend the press. Dear Brother, you
may guess by these trifles I cast out to entertain your
thoughts about me, how overjoyed he would be to see and
talk with you, who is unf eignedly and without amy other
remoter Bespects than your A£Eections

<< Your obliged Brother,

** TowxB Stbbbt, about the 20th of October, 1658.

'' P.S. — ^I pray present my humble Service to your Lady
and my dear Sister with all yours and not to fail burning
of this."

On March nth next year (1657-8), he is still in
London hoping **the ways will shortly prove good,
and then you are likely to be troubled with me who
hath been busy about perfecting the second part of
Advice to a Son to which I have been bold to aflSx
your name." Later in the same year he gets as far
as Oxford, and writes on April 27th, 1658, telling his
broiher-in-law of his arrival at his friend and pub-
lisher, Mr. T. W. Robinson, whose address is "a
Stationer by St. Mary's in Oxford." Oxford was
then two days' coach &om London, and it was not

xxviii INTRODUCTION

until 1669 that the flying coacli, as Antkony Wood
tells OS in his Life, " went from Oxon to London in
one day," and that bad to be a snmmer'a day when
they "entered into the coach at the tavern close
against Alls. Coll. precisely at 6 of the clock in the
morning, and at 7 at night they were all set down
in their inn at London." The letter runs as
follows :
" Dub Bbothss,

" I was last night after a weaiisome two dajs Coming
pigged out at Oxford where to my ji^ and your Htmour I
hear your noble Entertainment by all celebrated, but
eapeoially by your former Troop in which if I am not
mistaken lay no weak policy, I waa so detained with a Cold,
the Epidemical Malady of the time, as I could not observe
the week I resolred on. Wherefore I shall with Patience
attend, tdll you can with the most Conveniency and least
trouble, send for your so unnecessary Lumber that shall be
at a minute's warning ready to serve yon. If it falls out you
are at London, I would humbly desire my dear Sister to give
herself no Trouble for my Remove, bat to leave it to the best
opportunity shall be offered. I he at Mr. Robinson's the
statdoners, and find my old acquaintance (at least in show)
glad to see me."

The only remaining letter worth printing is one
written to his Sister Draper, apparently from Nether-
forton, where he seems installed as caretaker, and
ends bis sister a full and amnsing account of a recent
lomestic felony. This letter was written in his wife's
ifetime, and therefore prior to 1657, but there is
LOthing else by which to date it.

" Dkar Sisiaa,

"All your children are well, both at home and at

INTRODUCTION xxix

grass. My Brother's Gray Mare hath also presented him with
a sweet faced Bay Fillyi the birth of which your neighbour Mr.
Sheppard came to congratulate, and doth expect no less from
your husband in relation to the delivery of one of his gotten
by the famous Arabian Horse. I should here willingly
conclude but that my Essex lion (?) stands purring over me,
and contrary to my Nature and often Profession makes me
the Trumpet of a sad Disaster, which is no less than all the
Linnen you appointed to be washed is lost ; the Napkins^
Pillow-bers and one pair of flaxen sheets excepted, which
were scarce enough to dry the eyes of your maids and the
two watchmen if I may call them so, who were John Han and
a son of Falkeners. The Rogues that did it lay about the
town some nights before, after whom we sent but to little
purpose yet. My wife had a share in the loss, and but for a
fore hand of Kate's we had been put beyond our Shifts :
Great Nan hath lost my apron, my Aunt two Smocks, the
worth of which she values not so high as the Sin she fears
may be committed in them. To conclude here is a sad theme^
though it happened the night before this, or rather in the
morning as they Conceive. Never Lady heartily was ever
wished for home more cordially than you, and if you however
appear not to-day, we shall not know how to moderate the
great grief which has rebelled against us; Mine being to
express if I am able my own wishes,

'' I am. Sister,

" Your servant,

"Fb. Osborne,"

At Netherworton or at Oxford he remained, in all
probability, from April 1658 to the 4th of February
1658-9, the date of his death. He was buried in th&
Chapel of Netherworton, and the inscription upon
his tombstone * is as follows : —

* The 1722 edition, correcting Anthony Wood, says there is no-
monoment.

XXX INTRODUCTION

HEBE LIETH

FRANCIS OSBORNE,

who, by his wife anna, the daughtbb of

William Draper Gent, had issue :

THREE daughters AND ONE SON,

Katharine, Franobs, Dorothy, and John.

he was born the 26th of September, 1593, and

died the 4TH OF February, 1658.

His epitaph, written by himself, and showing some-
thing of his literary ambition, runs as follows :

*' I envy not those graves which take up room
Merely with Jetts and Porphyry ; since a tomb
Adds no desert. Wisdom thou God Divine
Convert my homble Soul into thy Shrine^
And then this body, tho' it want a Stone,
Will dignify the place where'er 'tis thrown."

These lines fitly conclude the narrow chronicles
that can now be gathered together concerning the
life and works of Francis Osborne, author and
moralist. Whether the reader of to-day will find
this book worthy of being rescued from oblivion, I
know not. Still, I cannot but believe that there
will be many who will agree with what Boswell says
in his apology for not concurring in Dr. Johnson's
sweeping condemnation of his style. " I have found,"
he writes, " much shrewd and lively sense expressed,
indeed, in a style somewhat quaint, which, however,
I do not dislike. His book has an air of originality.
We figure to ourselves an ancient gentleman talking
to us." In these days it is not easy to quench the
thirst that exists for details of the every-day life of
our forefathers, their thoughts and manners, and in

^

INTRODUCTION xxxi

my view there is much in the Advice to a Son to
challenge the interest of an ordinary reader as well
as a student of past literature. For myself, I find it
fresh, not musty, epigrammatic rather than conceited,
and take pleasure with Boswell in figuring the
ancient gentleman talking to me when I turn over
the pages of his book. But as my purpose has been
to edit and not to criticise, I hasten to leave the new
impression in the hands of its readers, trusting they
be not ''such as make it their business with the
Spider to suck out the Crudities and Corruptions in
Books, but rather those who take their Pastime in
the Depths of Beason."

Note to the Reader. — In matters of printuig, punctuation,
spelling, and the use of italics, I have endeavoured to re-
produce the text of his book as Francis Osborne left it.

ADVICE

U TO A

O N.

O R,

DIRECTIONS

FOR

Your better Condu6t through the va-
rious and most important Encounters of
this Life.

Under these General Heads.

1 . Studies, Sfr. ( ) 4' Government.

2. Love and Marriage. < V 5. Religion.

3. Travel. . ( ; Conclusion.

By FRAISICIS OSBORN, Esq.

ft

;)

-. •

it

I's

1

. t

y-.

TO THE READER

Such as make it their business^ with the Spider^
to st4ck out the Crudities and Corruptions in BookSy
are unlikely to fail of Matter here ; yet may come
far short of the Credit and Good might accrue to
themselves and others, did they pore less on what is
really amiss, and m.ore on thai not yet brought
under a perfect Knowledge (impossible to be taken
up pure by those thai begin but now to scramble for
ii:) New Opinions, thd perhaps untrue, rather
gaining than losing repute by opposition. This
breeds m^atter of wonder, why so many should
hazard their Fame, by running and yelping after
those prodigious Wits of this Last Age, B D H,
&c. Men not unable with Abner, to silence these
swifter Writers with the But-end of their Quills ;
and so richly endowed from Nature^ as they are
able to Traffick upon their single Stock, without
obliging the credit of ancient Authors ; who, for
ought I know, were of poorer Parts, and might
learn of them, were they in being. This is said to
honour those that can take tfieir Pastime in the
Depths of Reason; and not to shroud my poor

Interest

4 TO THE READER

Interest under theirs^ whose Books deserve better
Coverings than can be picked out of the c/wicest of
my Papers ; or theirs that have the impudence to
traduce them. It cannot be denied^ but that, in
imitation of Sea-men, I may perhaps by design
have cast out some empty stuffy to find play for the
Whale-mouth' d gapers after Levity; lest they
should spoil the Voyage, which for the good of Pos-
terity, I have so long made, beyond those Pillars, the
Liberty of these times hath afforded Wisdom, a
larger Passport to Travel, than was ever able
formerly to be obtained, when the World kept her
fettered in an implicite Obedience, by the threefold
Cord of Custom, Education and Ignorance.

TO HIS SON

SON,

I HAVE forborn to set your Name on the Fore-
head of these Aphorisms, not that I am ashamed
either of Them or You ; but for such like rea-
sons.

Firsts Because some Truths^ I here endeavour
to make legible, the Tyranny of Custom and
Policy labours to conceal, as destructive to the
Project of Government : and therefore unlikely to
pass by wise Men, without 2i formal Reproof; who
have been long since taught by unerring Experi-
ence, that Ignorance draws with the least Reluc-
tancy in the Yoke of Obedience^ being of so sheep-
ish a Nature, as she is no Bodies Foe but her
own.

Next, To spare you the trouble of arming your
Reason, in way of Defence, upon every Alarm
they may receive from the Censures of Wiser or
Weaker Judgments : For not carrying the Marks
of your particular Interest, you may stand, as it
were, unseen, behind the Curtain of Indifferency,
and hear, without blushing, the Opinions of

others,

6 ADVICE TO A SON

others, if Chance or your Will should please to
make them the object of their Discourse.

Amongst whom, if any accuse them, as too
cheap and obvious ; they are unadvised Ques-
tioners of their own Charter, in case they should
be Fathers ; who were never denied yet the Freer
dom to teach their Children to mannage an Hobby*
horse, without offering Violence to Gravity or
Discretion.

Neither do we so ordinarily fall, through the
unevenness or difficulty of the Way, as Careless-
ness and Ignorance in the Journals of former
Experience : This makes it the greatest Demon-
stration of Paternal Affection, with the Pelican, to
dissect my self before you, and by ripping up my
own Bowels, to let you gee where the Defects of
Humanity reside ; which are not only the occa-
sions of many Diseases, but of most of the Mis-
fortunes accompanying this Life.

And though in passing through so much weak-
ness, they are rendred more deficient, than con-
sidered in their own Nature, in truth they are :
Yet being the best I am able to afford you, they
cannot but be looked upon (by you) for as lively
a Monument of my Love, as if they bore the
Magisterial Impress of a Work of Solomotis.

And in regard of Time, none can be more
opportune than this, in which Men carry Breasts
of Steel against those of their own Profession
(some Nicities excepted) under the imperious
pretence of Religion.

If any blinded with Ignorance^ or misled by a

more

TO HIS SON 7

more candid Nature, should engage for the suffi-
ciency of These, or any thing else I have writ, that
may perhaps hereafter be made Publick ; I am
conscious of too many .Flaws in my self, to be
swelled beyond my natural proportion.

Your sake alone produced them, that during
the little time I have to live, you might turn to
my Judgment, upon all occasions, without trouble ;
and converse with me being dead, without fear.

There is no great difference between good
days and evil, when past ; yet if thus fortified by
the Advice of a Father^ no less than the Prayers
of an incomparable indulgent Mother ^ you should
break out into Extravagancies^ presuming on the
Opinion of your own Judgment, and the medi-
ation of our Love (though it would be the
severest Curse remaining in the Custody of For-
tune, yet unlaid upon me :) I doubt not but to
receive more Comfort from a Patience able to
bear it, than you shall from a Repentance suffi-
cient to blot it out

But it is neither Delight in me, nor Charity
unto you, by Jealousie to antedate Crimes never
yet committed ; I desire you therefore to take
these Admonitions as Marks to Sail by^ not for
Presages of Shipwreck.

For any Faults Escaped here, through haste,
or other Infirmity, I hope your Love will be
large enough to cover them ; nor exposing out of
Ostentation or Idleness, your Father's shame:
whereby not only what is perfect may prove
useful, but the very Mistakes and Blots obtained

as

8 ADVICE TO A SON

as great a Design, by exercising your Wit and
Industry in their Emendation; which I expect
you should faithfully perform in relation to These,
or any thing else you find, may traduce the Credit,
or stain the Memory of

Your Loving Father, &c.

ADVICE TO A SON

I. STUDIES, &c.

I . Though I can never pay enough to your
Grandfatket^s Memory, for his tender care of my
Education^ yet I must observe in it this Mistake ;
That by keeping me at homey where I was one of
my young Masters, I lost the advantage of my
most docile time. For not undergoing the same
Discipline, I must needs come short of their
experience, that are bred up in Free Schools;
who, by plotting to rob an Orchard, Sfc. run
through all the Subtilties required in taking of a
Town ; being made, by use, familiar to Secresie,
and Compliance with Opportunity ; Qualities never
after to be attained at cheaper rates than the
hazard of all : whereas these see the danger of
trusting others, and the Rocks they fall upon, by
a too obstinate adhering to their own imprudent
resolutions ; and all this under no higher penalty
than a Whipping : And 'tis possible this indul-
gence of my Father might be the cause I afforded
him so poor a Return for all his Cost

I But

lo ADVICE TO A SON

But though Children attain to an exacter
Knowledge^ both of tke7nselves and the Worlds in
Free and populous Schools^ than under a more
solitary Erudition ; yet I think the Charity of
our Forefathers in nothing so much mistaken, as
in the vast Sums they imployed in these (more
seeming than real) pious usesy which now much
redounds to the prejudice of the Plough^ and the
more beneficial Manufactures of our Nation ;
The Sons of the Menu lying so long under this
lazy Course^ that they are rendred ever after
resty to Labour and Travel : which fills the
Common- wealth with Thieves and Beggars ; no
way to be prevented, but by garbling out of them
all Boys of an incapacity, and retaining none
that make not more than an ordinary demonstra-
tion of an extraordinary propensity to Learning :
since through the Contrary Practice, we lye under
the Qaxx^^ feroboam brought upon Israel: For by
making the meanest of the People^ both for Parts
and Birth, and so of the least credit, Priests^
Religion is now fallen into contempt.
O 2. As your Education hath been befriended by

a Foundation^ so you may endeavour the Requital,
if God makes you able: However let not the
contrary afflict you : since it is observed by
some. That his name who burnt the Temple of
Diana, out-lasted theirs that built it; a fortune
God grant may never fall upon our Universities.
Nevertheless, if Zeal over-heated in the narrow
hearts of men ignorant and covetous, should dry
up the Fountains of Learnings by appropriating

their

STUDIES, &c. II

their Revenues^ and demolishing those Monuments
(to the Fame of which Foreign Nations resort in
Pilgrimages, for to offer up Honour and Admira-
tion to these Shrines, never empty of glorious
Spirits, and return more loaden with Satisfaction,
than they could possibly bring Prejudice) yet she
should pull down no more, than she had formerly
raised, when incited, by a contrary Affection, to
Charity and Knowledge ; therefore, a Provocation
not strong enough to distemper a wise Man's
Patience ; who may easily observe, in his own or
precedent Books of Experience, as great Maps of
Devastation : For, if one Age did not levely what
another had erected^ Variety were lost, and no
means left to render the present or future Genera-
tions famous or infamous. However such, as by
disobliging Learning and good Wits, frown upon
their Painters, cannot expect, their Picture should
be conveyed true or fair to Posterity.

3. Let not an over-passionate prosecution of
Learning draw you from making an honest
Improvement of your Estate ; as such do, who are
better read in the Bigness of the whole Earth,
than that little Spot, left them by their Friends,
for their support.

4. A mixt Education suits Imployment best:
Scholars and Citizens^ by a too long plodding in
the same Track, have their Experience seldom
dilated beyond the Circle of a narrow Profession :
of which they carry so apparent Marks, as bewray
in all Places, by their Words and Gestures^ the
Ped and Company they were brought up in ; so

that

12 ADVICE TO A SON

that all ways of Preferment are stopped against
them, through others Prejudice, or their own
natural Insufficiency ; it being ordinary in their
Practice, to mistake a wilful Insolence for a reso-
lute Confidence^ and Pride for Gravity ; the short-
ness of the Tedder^ their long Restraint confin'd
them to, not affording convenient Room to take
"* a decent Measure of Virtue and Vice, So by
using others as they were dealt with themselves,
repute is lost when they come to command ; it
being justified in History, That Slaves after they
have forgot all fear of the Sword, cannot shake
off* the Terrour of the Whip. Therefore few not
freely Educated, can wear decently the Habit of
a Courts or behave themselves in such a Medio-
crity, as shall not discover too much Idolatry
towards those in a superior Orb, or disdain in
relation to such, as Fortune rather than Merit
hath possibly placed below them.

5. I have observed in Collegiate Discipline^
That all the Reverence to Superiors^ learned in
the Hall or Chappel, is lost in the irreverent dis-
course you have of them in your Chambers ; by
this, you leave the principal business of Youth
neglected, which is, to be perfect in Patience and
Obedience; Habits no where so exactly learned,
as in the foundations of the fesuites, could they
be fetcht thence without Prejudice to Religion or
Freedom.

6. If a more profitable Imployment ' pull you
not too soon from the University, make some
Inspection into Physick ; which will add to your

Welcome

STUDIES, &c. 13

Welcome wherever you come; it being usual,
especially for Ladies, to yield no less Reverence
to their Physitians, than their Confessors : Neither
doth the refusal of Fees abate your Profit pro-
portionably to the Advancement it brings to
your Credit : The Intricacy of the Study is not
great : after an exact knowledge in Anatomy and
Drugs is attained ; not hard, by reason of the
late Helps. Yet I advise you This, under such
Caution, as not to imagine the Diseases you read
of, inherent in your self ; as some Melancholick
young Men do, that make their first experiments
upon their own Bodies, to their perpetual Detri-
ment ; therefore you may live By, not Upon Physick.
7. Do not prosecute beyond a superficial
Knowledge, any Learning that moves upon no
stronger Leggs, than the tottering Basis of Con- ^
jecture is able to afford it ; For though you may
please your self in your own Conceit, it will not be
so easie to satisfie others : The capacity of the
ignorant lying as much below such Speculations,
as the more knowing are above them : there
remaining to all, in things dubious, a power to
reject, or admit what opinions they please.
Therefore no Study is worth a Mans whole
employment, that comes not accompanied with
Profit^ or such unanswerable Rea^sons, as are able
to silence all future debate ; Nor to be found out
of the List of the Mathematicks^ the Queen of^
Truth, that imposeth nothing upon her Subjects,
but what she proves due to Belief by infallible
Demonstration : The only knowledge we can on

Earht

14 ADVICE TO A SON

Earth gain, likely to attend us to Heaven. As
for other human Learning, so much of it as is
not hewed out of this Rock, is nothing but Lum-
ber and Forms owned for the Majesty and Employ-
ment only of Acadamies, and of little better use than
to find Discourse by the Fires side. Yet though it
cannot be denied, that Number and Measure, were
all the Journey-men God had during his six days
labour ; my Memory reacheth the time, when the
generality of People thought her most useful
Branches, Spells, and her Professors, Limbs of the
Devil; converting the honour of Oxford, due for
her (though at that time slender) proficiency in
this Study, to her shame : Not a few of our
then foolish Gentry, refusing to send their Sons
thither, lest they should be smutted with the
Black Art; a term found out by a no less dark
Ignorance, the only Enemy to this Angelical
Knowledge. Nor is this a Prodigie in the cir-
culation Time, as might easily be instanced, did
discretion allow the same liberty to the dissecters
of the present Age, as she doth for those past :
Neither can you make application of any example
better, than of this, to dissuade you from afford-
ing an immoderate proportion of Benevolence,
or Malignity in relation to any thing, others
condemn or approve.

'^. Huge Volumes, like the Ox roasted whole at
■tholomew Pair, may proclaim plenty of Labour
Invention, but afford less of what is delicate,
>ry and well concocted, than smaller Pieces:
s makes me think, that though, upon occasion,
you

STUDIES, &c. 15

you may come to the Table, and examine the
Bill of Fare, set down by such Authors ; yet it
cannot but lessen Ingenuity, still to fall aboard
with them ; Human sufficiency being too narrow ^ to in-
form with the pure Soul of Reason^ such vast Bodies,

9. As the Grave hides the Faults of Physick^
no less than Mistakes, Opinion and contrary
Applications are known to have enriched the Art
withal ; so many old Books^ by like advantages
rather than desert, have crawled up to an esteem
above new : It being the business of better heads
perhaps than ever their writers owned, to put a
glorious and significant gloss upon the meanest
conceit or improbable Opinion of Antiquity:
Whereas Modem Authors are brought by Criticks
to a strict Account for the smallest semblance of
a Mistake. If you consider this seriously, it will
learn you more Moderation, if not Wisdom.

10. Be conversant in the Speeches^ Declarations
and Transactions occasioned by the late War:
out of which more natural and useful Knowledge
may be sucked, than is ordinary to be found in
the mouldy Records of Antiquity.

When I consider with what contradiction
Reports arrived at us, during our late Civil Wars ;
I can give the less encouragement to the reading
of History : Romances^ never acted, being born
purer from Sophistication than Actions reported
to be done, by which Posterity hereafter (no less
than Antiquity heretofore) is likely to be led into
a false, or at best, but a contingent belief.
CcBsarj tho* in this happy, that he had a Pen able

to

i6 ADVICE TO A SON

to grave into neat Language what his Sword at
first more roughly cut out, may in my judgment,
abuse his Reader : For he, that for the Honour
of his own Wit, doth make People speak better^
than can be supposed Men so barbarously bred
were able, may possibly report ^^y fought worscy
than really they did. Of a like Value are the
Orations of Thucidides^ Livy, Tacitus, and most
other Historians ; which doth not a little preju-
dice the Truth of all the rest.

Were it worthy or capable to receive so much
Illumination from one never made welcome by it,
I should tell the World (as I do you) There is as
little Reason to believe^ Men know certainly all they
Write, as to think they Write all they Imagine :
And as this cannot be admitted without Danger,
so the other, tho' it may in Shame be denyed, is
altogether as true.

II. K few Books well studied, and thoroughly
digested, nourish the Understanding more, than
hundreds but gargled in the Mouth, as ordinary
Students use : And of these Choice must be had
answerable to the Profession you intend : For a
States-Man, French Authors are best, as most
fruitful in Negotiations and Memoirs^ left by
Publick Ministers, and by their Secretaries pub-
lished after their Deaths : Out of which you may
be able to unfold the Riddles of all States : None
making more faithful Reports of things done in
all Nations, than Embassadors ; who cannot want
the best Intelligence, because their Princes Pen-
sioners unload in their Bosoms, all they can

discover

STUDIES, &c. 17

discover. And here, by way of Prevention,
let me inform you, That some of our late
Embassadors (which I could name) impaired our
Affairs, by treating with Foreign Princes in the
Language of the Place : By which they did not only
descend below their Masters Dignity, but their
own Discretion : betraying for want of Words of
gravity, the intrinsick Part of their Employment :
And going beyond their Commission^ oftner by
Concession, than confining themselves within it,
or to it ; the true Rule for a Minister of State^
not hard to be gained by a resolute contest :
Which if made by an Interpreter he, like a
medium, may intercept the shame of any imper-
tinent Speech, which Egarness or Indiscretion
tnay let slip : Neither is it a small advantage to
gain so much time for Deliberation, what is fit
farther to urge : It being besides, too much an
honouring of their Tongue and undervaluing your
own, to Profess your self a Master therein, especi-
ally since they scorn to learn yours. And to
shew this is not grounded on my single Judg-
ment, I have often been informed, that the first
and wisest Earl of Pembroke^ did return an
Answer to the Spanish Embassador^ in Welch^ for
which I have heard him highly commended.

12. It is an Aphorism in Physick, That un-
wholesome AirSy because perpetually suck'd into
the Lungs, do distemper Health more than coarser
diety used but at set Times : The like may be
said of Company y which if good^ is a better Refiner ^
of the Spirits^ than ordinary Books.

B 13. Propose

I

rsf'-.-'. ■'■'■•

i8 ADVICE TO A SON

1/ 13. Propose not them for Patterns, who make

all Places rattle^ where they come, with Latin and
Greek ; For the more you seem to have borrowed
from. Books f the poorer you proclaim your Natural
PartSy which only can properly be called yours.

14. Follow not the tedious Practice of such as
seek Wisdom only in Learning : Not attainable
but by Experience and Natural Parts, Much
Readings like a too great Repletion, stopping up,
through a concourse of diverse, sometimes con-
trary Opinions, the Access of a nearer, newer and
quicker Invention of your own. And for Quota-
tionSy they resemble Sugar in Wine^ marring the
natural taste of the Liquor, if it be good ; if bad,
that of itself: such Patches rather making the
rent seem greater, by an interruption of the Stile,
than less, if not so neatly applyd as to fall in
without drawing: Nor is any Thief in this kind
sufferable, who comes not oflF, like a Lacedemonian^
without discovery.

15. Spend no time in Reading, much less
Writing Strong lines : Which like tough meaty ask
more pains and time in chewing, than can be re-
compensed by all the nourishment they bring.

16. Books stately Writ debase your Stile ; the
like may be truly objected to Weak Preachers,
and Ignorant Company. Pens improving, like
childrens legs, proportionably to their Exercise (so
as I have seen some stand amazed at the length
of their own reach, when they came to be ex-
tended by Employment;) This appeared in the
late King Charles, who, after his more imperious

destiny,

STUDIES, &c. 19

destiny, had placed him under the Tutorage of an
unavoidable necessity, attained a Pen more Majes-
tical, than the Crown he lost. And tho* King
James had such an over-esteem of his own Learn-
ings that he Imagined all who deserved in that
kind, robbed the Monument he sought to build to
his Fame ; the Foundation of which he fondly
conceited to have laid in the Opinion of the
World by his printed Books^ believing they would
be valued by impartial Posterity, at the same rate
his Flatterers set them up to in his life time ;
Yet in this he was so far exceeded by his Son^
that all that come after may learn ; Experience is
a better Tutor than Buchanan.

1 7. The way to Elegancy of stile^ is to employ
your Pen upon every Errand ; and the more
trivial and dry it is, the more Brains must be
allowed for Sauce : Thus by checking all ordinary
Invention, your Reason will attain to such a
Habit, as not to dare to present you but with
what is excellent; and if void of Affection, it
matters not how mean the Subject is : There
being the same Exactness observed, by good
Architects, in the structure of the Kitchin, as
the Parlour.

18. When business or Complement calls you
to Write Letters^ Consider what is fit to be said,
were the Party present, and set down That.

19. Avoid Words or Phrases likely to be
learned in base Company; lest you fall into
the Error, the late Archbishop Laud did ; who
tho' no ill speaker, yet blunted his repute by

saying

20 ADVICE TO A SON

saying in the Star-Chamber^ Men entred the
Church as a Tinker and his Bitch do an Alehouse.
But this may easily be declined by those who
read for their imitation the incomparable Lines of
the late King^ written in a Stile as free from
Affectation as Levity.

20. The small reckoning I have seen made
(especially in their life time) of excellent Wits,
bids me advise you, that if you find any delight
in writing, to go on : But, in hope to please or
satisfie others, I would not black the end of a
Quill : For long experience hath taught me, That
Builders always, and Writers for the most part,
spend their money and tifne in the purchase of
Reproof and Censure from envious Contempor-
aries, or self-conceited Posterity. He that gets
the good word of his Reader, hath nothing else to
look for, nor ask : Therefore if you would happily
attain your end, Imitate an active Gentleman, I
knew, who passing by such as threw the Bar^
would take it up and pitch it as far as he was
able, the first time, and so leave them : Now few
could out-throw him ; and such as did, came
short in credit : Because it was the general
Opinion, that he who without untrussing, or
making such a preparation as the Clowns use to
do, could at the first go so far, must needs with
another assay or two, have out-gone them all :
tho' in truth he could not. Thus had he not only
his own strength, but the Peoples, which lies in
Opinion, to advance him.

21. Be not frequent in P^^/f^, how excellent

soever

r,

STUDIES, &c. 21

soever your vein is, but make it rather your
Recreation^ than Business : Because, tho* it swells
you in your own opinion, it may render you less
in that of wiser men, who are not ignorant, how
great a Mass of Vanity, for the most part couch-
eth under this Quality, Proclaiming their Heads^
like Ships of use only for Pleasurey and so richer
in Trimming than Lading,

It is incident to many, but as it were natural
with Poets, to think others take the like pleasure in ^
hearings as they do in reading their own Inventions.
Not considering, that the generality of ears are
commonly stopped with prejudice of Ignorance:
Neither can the Understandings of Men, any
more than their Tasts^ be wooed to find a like
favour in all things ; one approving what others
condemn, upon no weightier an account than the
single score of their own Opinions. Yet some,
like infirm people, make it the chief part of their
entertainment, to shew strangers their gouty Lines ; •
in which they do not seldom become more
unhappy than those really diseased, who by
such boldness do sometimes hear of a Remedy^
whereas the other render themselves incurable :
For tho' neat Wits^ like fair Ladies^ may taste a
Pleasure in making communicable the Beauty of ^
their Parts ; yet they both appear most grateful,
when they are obtained with struggling and
blushing.

2 2. The Art of Musick is so unable to refund
for the Times and Cost required to be perfect
therein, as I cannot think it worth any serious

endeavour :

^

22 ADVICE TO A SON

endeavour : The owner of that Quality being
still obliged to the trouble of calculating the
difference between the morose humour of a rigid
Refuser, and the cheap and prostituted levity and
forwardness of a mercenary Fidler. Denial being
as often taken for Pride, as a too ready com-
pliance falls under the notion of Ostentation :
Those so qualified seldom knowing when it is
time to begin, or give over; especially Women^
who do not rarely decline in modesty, proportion-
ably to the progress they make in Mustek;
such (if handsom) being Traps baited at both ends^
and catch strangers as oft as their Husbands, no
less tired with the one than the other.

23. Wear your Cloaths neaty exceeding rather
than coming short of others of like fortune ;
a Charge born out by Acceptance where-ever
you come ; Therefore spare all other ways rather
than prove defective in this.

24. Never buy but with ready Mony ; and be
drawn rather to fix where you find things Cheap
and Good^ than for Friendship or Acquaintance^
who are apt to take it unkindly, if you will not
be cheated. For if you get nothing else by
going from one Shop to another, you shall gain
Experience.

25. Next to Cloaths, a good Horse becomes a
Gentleman : in whom can be no great loss, after
you have got the skill to chuse him ; which once
attained, you may keep your self from being
cozened, and pleasure your friend .- The greatest
danger is Haste : I never lov'd to fix on one Fat^

for

STUDIES, &c. 23

for then I saw him at the best, without hope of
improvement : If you have fallen on a Bargain
not for your turn^ make the Market your Chap-
man, rather than a Friend.

26. Gallop not through a Town, for fear of
hurting your self or others ; besides the undecency
of it, which may give cause to such as see you,
to think your Horse, or Brains none of your
own.

27. Wrestling and Vaulting have ever been
looked upon by me as more useful than Fencings
being often out dar'd by Resolution, because of
the vast difference between a Foyn and a Sword,
an House and a Field.

28. Swimming may save a man, in case of
necessity ; though it loseth many, when practised
in wantonness, by increasing their confidence ;
therefore, for Pleasure exceed not your depth;
and in seeking to save another^ beware of drowning

your self

29. Tho' Machiavel sets down Hunting and
Hawking in the Bill of Advice he prescribes to a
Prince, as not only the wholsomest and cheapest
Diversions, both in relation to himself and his
People, but the best Tutors to Horsemanship,
Stratagems and Situations on which he may have
after occasion to place an Army. Yet these are
so much in the disposition of Chance (the most
delightful part being wholly managed according
to the sense of the Creature) that by such cross
accidents, as do not seldom intervene storms of
Choler are often raised, in which many humors

flash

24 ADVICE TO A SON

flash out, that in a greater serenity prudence
would undoubtedly conceal ; so as I could name
some reputed owners of a habit of Policy, more
ruffled, and farther put out of their bias, by a
small rub lying in the way of their pleasure, than
a greater could cause in that of their profit. And
as sinister evepts in these Pastimes deject a man
below the ordinary level^of discretion, so a happy
success doth as often wind him up to such a
jovial pin, that he becomes a familiar Companion
to those who can inform his Judgment in little,
but what signifies nothing, and whom in a more
reserved temper he would think it tedious to
hear, yet cannot after shake off" their acquaint-
ance, without incurring the censure of Pride or
Inconstancy. Neither am I led to this opinion
by any particular disaffection, but out of the
greater reverence I bear to the wisdom of Sir
Philip Sidney y who said that next Hunting he liked
Hawking worst. However tho* he may have
fallen into as hyperbolical an extream, yet who
can put too great a scorn upon their folly, that to
bring home a raskal Deer^ or a few rotten Coneys^
submit their Lives to the will or passion of such
as may take them, under a penalty no less slight,
than there is discretion shewed in exposing
them?

30. Such as are betrayed by their easie nature,
to be ordinary Security for their Friends, leave so
little to themselves, as their Liberty remains ever
after arbitrary at the will of others. Experience
having recorded many (whom their Fathers had

left

STUDIES, &c. 25

left elbow-room enough) that by Suretiship have
expired in a Dungeon. But if you cannot avoid
this Labyrinth, enter no farther than the thread
of your own Stock will reach ; the observation
of which will, at worst, enable you to bail your
self.

Let not the Titles of Consanguinity betray you
into a prejudicial Trust ; no blood being apter to
raise a Fever, or cause a Consumption sooner in
your poor Estate, than that which is nearest your
own ; as I have most unhappily found, and your
good Grandfather presaged, tho' God was pleased
to leave it in none of our powers to prevent :
Nothing being truer in all Solomon's Observations,
than that A good Friend is nearer than an un^
natural Brother.

31. He that lends upon publick Faith is
Security for his own Mony, and can blame none
more than himself, if never paid : Common
Debts, like common Lands, lying ever most
neglected.

32. Honesty treats with the World upon such
vast disadvantage, that a Pen is often as useful to
defend you as a Sword^ by making Writing the
witness of your Contracts; for where profit appears,
it doth commonly cancel the bands of Friend-
ship, Religion, and the memory of any thing that
can produce no other Register than what is
verbal.

33. In a case of importance, hear the Reasons
of Others pleaded, but be sure not to be so im-
plicitly led by their Judgments, as to neglect a

greater

* -

26

ADVICE TO A SON

•

greater of your Own : As Charles of England
did, to the loss of his Crown. For as the ordi-
nary saying is, Count Many after your Father :
So the same prudence adviseth, to measure the
Ends of all Councils, tho' uttered by never so
intimate a Friend.

34. Beware nevertheless of thinking your self
wiser or greater than you are. Pride brake the
Angels in Heaven, and spoils all heads we find
crackt here ; for such as observe those in Bedlam^
shall perceive their Fancies to beat most upon
mistakes in Honour or Love. The way to avoid
it is, duly to consider, how many are above you in
Parts^ yet below you in Condition : And that all
men are ignorant in so many things ; as may
justly humble them, tho' sufficiently knowing to
bar out despair.

Shun Pride and Baseness, as Tutors to Con-
tempt, the first of others, the latter of your self :
A haughty Carriage putting as well a mean
esteem on what is praiseworthy in you, as an
high Excise on that appears amiss, every one
being more inquisitive after the Blemishes, than the
Beauties of a Proud Person ; whereas the humble
Soul passeth the strictest Guards with more faults,
like the fair mouth'd Traveller, without scorn, or
searching.

Tho* it be common with the King of Heaven,
to Punish the wicked and Reward the good ; yet
we find him said to Resist no vice, but Pride, nor
Exalt other vertue, than Humility : That being
the only Sin we read of ever brake into his

Court,

STUDIES, &c. 27

Court, unwashed by forgiveness ; where she
becanie the first Precedent of Gods lessening his
Family, and the Foundress of Hell. Nor are his
Vicegerents upon Earth more auspicious to a
lofty look for any affection they do naturally bear
to it, or its owners : tho* sometimes they dis-
semble their dislike, out of the use they make of
such good Parts as have the ill fortune to be so
accompanied, this vice being taken as intrusion
upon Majesty^ the only birth-right of Princes.
Therefore (dear Son) let not the apprehension of
your merit lead you up to this Pinnacle, from whence
many have fallen, to their utter ruin. Nothing
you find about you being your own, but scraps
stoUen from Books, and begged, or rather dearly
bought of Experience: This proves the vanity
of Pride, that tho* she is able to boast of no more
than she hath received ; (the Hive being possibly
altered, but not the Hony) yet she is ravished so
with the conceit of what she hath (a contempla-
tion befitting only the Lord of all things) as to
neglect a supply of what is wanting ; which,
justly summed up, amounts to more than the
abilities of any one man are able to reach.

35. King James used to say of a Person in
high Place about him, that he ever trembled at his
approach^ it minded him so of his Pedagogue. Truth
is, a superMious aspect might be more suitable to
the Court of Spaitiy where men seem wiser than
they are, than that of England^ where they for
the most part were wiser, than at the first sight
they appeared to be : No Princes delighting to

see

• » »

' * . ■> '
> . " - '

28 ADVICE TO A SON

see Anxiety painted before them, when free from
Perturbation themselves ; no more than a joyful
countenance, when their affairs or humour call for
a contrary aspect : to which a Courtier is bound
in wisdom to sute his Gestures ; who are more
generally pleased with a Sanguine Complexion,
than such as own a dismal or melancholy look.
But Kings are HeterocUtes, and so far from being
comprized under general Rules, that it is not
possible sometimes for Patience herself to decline
their Malignity, or find a temperament suitable
unto them : Only this I leave you as an Experi-
mented Aphorism, that at all times, but especi-
ally when good or bad news is expected, such as
whisper, make any sudden noise, or approach
hastily to the Throne, put them in disaray, either
deluding their Hopes, or anticipating their Fears.
In a word, the best way to keep you in esteem
with great ones, is, to observe such a mannerly
circumspection, as your accesses may be neither
terrible, nor tedious.

36. To whisper with another, in company of

your betters, is uncivil, and the more eminent

the person is, the greater suspicion it raiseth,

who owns an interest in the exposition of all

things done or said in his presence by meaner

men. Nor is it safe to pour a secret publickly

into the ear of a Prince, at the suit of a less

weighty occasion, than that of an unavoidable

necessity : such Intimacy alarming not only the

cion of Enemies, but the envy of Friends ;

every one, his eyes chance to glance upon

during

STUDIES, &c. 29

during your Discourse, imagines himself the
subject treated about : The Pride, a Secretary
of State took in this (seeming, but not seldom
destructive) Honour, did in my time so perplex
the Minion^ as he procured his ejection, without
affording any other Reason, than his whispering
with the King J in his presence ; taken then for
an high Presumption, however it may seem now
the Forms of Honour are altered.

37. When you speak to any (especially of
Quality) look them full in the face ; other Gestures
bewraying want of Breeding, Confidence, or
Honesty; dejected Eyes confessing, to most Judg-
ments, Guilt or Folly.

38. Impudence is no Virtue^ yet able to beggar^
them all ; being for the most part in good Plight,
when the rest starve ; and capable of carrying her
Followers up to the highest Preferments ; found
as useful in a Court, as Armour in a Camp.
Scotchmen have ever made good the Truth of
this, who will go farther with a Shilling, than
an Englishman can ordinarily pass for a Crown.

39. I do not find you guilty of CovetousnesSy
neither can I say more of it, but that like a
Candle^ ill made^ it smothers the Splendour of an
happy Fortune in its own Grease,

Yet live so Frugally ^ if possible, as to reserve
something, may inable you to grapple with any
future contingency. And provide in Youth^ since
Fortune hath this proper with other common
Mistresses, that she deserts AgCy especially in the
Company of Want.

But

30 ADVICE TO A SON

But I need not use other Persuasions unto you
concerning Thrift, than what the straitness of
your own Fortune points you to ; more contracted
by others Covetousness than my Prodigality.

40. 'Tis generally said of the Fox, TTiat he
supplants the Badger, and nestles himself in his
Den : What may be pure nature in him, wise
Seneca adviseth for the highest Prudence, rather
to purchase a House ready built, than endure
the tedious and troublesom Expectation and
Chaise attending the most diligent and able
Contriver: Who cannot find so much pleasure
in seeing his Idea's brought into Form, as he
shall meet Discontent from the Mistakes of his
Commands, Greatness of the Expence, and Idle-
ness of the Workmen ; who the better to draw
men into this Labyrinth, make things appear
more cheap and easie, than any Undertaker of
such a Task ever yet found ; knowing, if once
ingaged, the Spurs of Shame and Necessity will
drive him on ; when the Buyer may take or leave,
having a World to chuse in, and the choicest
Conveniences at anothers Cost, without participat-
ing of their Di^ace, for such Faults as Curiosity
may find, and he himself might have fallen into,
had he been Operator : Since nothing was ever
yet so exactly contrived, but better Information,
new discovery of a more commodious Fashion
ituation did arreign of Defect. Which alto-
er, proves it the best Advice, rather to
ire the Absurdities of others gratis, than to
t the Cost to commit greater your self.

Keep

STUDIES, &c. 31

Keep no more Servants than you have full
Employment for ; and if you find a good one, ^
look upon him under no severer aspect than that
of diVi humble Friend ; the difference between such
a one and his Master residing rather in Fortune
than Nature. Therefore do not put the worst
Constructions upon any thing he doth well, or
mistakes. Thus by proportioning your Carriage
to those below, you will the better bring your
Mind to a safe and easie Deportment to such
as Fate hath set above you. To conclude, ^
Servants are ever Sharers with their Masters in
Prosperity, and not seldom an occasion of their
Destruction in bad Times, by fomenting Jealousie
from without, or Treachery within.

4 1 . Leave your Bed upon the first desertion of
Sleep ; It being ill for the Eyes to read lying,
and worse for the Mind to be idle : since the
Head, during that laziness, is commonly a Cage v
for Unclean Thoughts.

42. It is no where wholsom, to eat so long as
you are able ; especially in England^ where Meat,
aptest to inveigle the Stomach to an over-reple-
tion, comes last : But in case you transgress at
one Meal, let no persuasion tempt you to a
second Repast, till by a fierce Hunger you find
your self quite discharged of the former Excess.
An exact Observance of this hath, under God,
made me reach these Times, and may, through
his Mercy, preserve you for better. I have heard.
That the Indians^ by the great Moderation they
use, are well able to digest raw Flesh : thought

by

32 ADVICE TO A SON

by some of more Natural, if not easie Concoction,
than what is dry-roasted.
(y Drink not being Hot, unless Sack, Gfc, such

Droughts residing rather in the Palate and
Throat, than Stomach, and so safer quenched by
Gargles, Liquorish, a Cherry or Tobacco ; the use
of which I neither persuade nor prohibit, having
taken it my self since sixteen, without any extra-
ordinary Marks of Good or 111, but cannot
approve Nosing, or Swallowing it down ; as
many to my Knowledge have done, not long
hVd.

43. Nothing really acceptable to the Gusto of
Humanity, but Prudence may experiment without
detection or waking the clamorous Multitude,
(gratified in all Opportunities they have to
accuse others, tho' far more guilty themselves :)
a Temper not possibly to be attained by the
Lovers of Drink, which will not only render my
Reasons, but your own useless.

Let not Incivility in the Administration of an
Officer provoke you to a contempt of the
Authority he acts by ; many being quick in
Memory, who, out of scorn to be catechised by a
Constable, have summ'd up their days at the end
of a Watchman's Bill ; who being armed with
^Law, ought not in Reason to be resisted ; since,
if you are no Malefactor, he attends for your
Preservation. Nor is there a Capacity of finding
Honour by Night about those, that can lay Claim
themselves to none by day-light ; and through
whom a small drop of Silver will carry you more

safe

STUDIES, &c. 33

safe than a Sword. Therefore since this folly is
the Birth-right of Drink^ I would have only-
Dinners assigned for Friendship ; in hope that
such as begin then, tho' they out-sit the Sun, will
be delivered of the fury of the Distemper before
the Watch be set.

Were Drink capable of Counsel, I should
advise, if unfortunately overtaken by such a
Distemper^ not to remove from the Place you
received it in ; by which some part of the shame
may be avoided, and more of the Danger,
attending the irregular Motions, of this giddy
Spirit

Drinky during the Operation of the Distemper,
will Act all the Humors habitual in Madmen :
Amongst both which I have seen some very
Zealous and Devout, who, the fit once over,
remained no less Prophane. This proves Godli-
ness capable of being feigned^ and may false an '
Use of Circumspection, in relation to such as
profess more than is suitable to Human Frailty.

44. He that always regulates his Diet by the
strict Rules of Physick, makes his Life no less
uncomfortable to himself than unsociable unto '
others : The like doth he that useth palpable
Plots in trivial things: Who is made by this
so suspected in Commerce, as none will approach
him unarmed with the like Weapons : For tho'
Wisdom^ may purchase Reverence and Attention;
Subtilty (distinguished from . it only by a sly
Carriage) raiseth always 'Suspicion : Wherefore,
the Closeness of the Hearty in matters of Con-

C sequence

34 ADVICE TO A SON

sequence, is best secured by an openness of things
of less Moment.

45, Experience hath found it no less shame
than Danger, in being the Chief at a merry
AssignaHon : Since what is of evil savour falls most
to their Mess at the upper end of the Table ; but
good to the meanest, who have the Impudence to
scramble up any things that suit to their Advan-
tage, as readily as they can have Oaths to decline
what may redound to their Loss.

Beware what Company you keep, since Ex-
ample prevails more than Precept, tho' by the
Erudition dropping from these Tutors, we imbibe
all the tinctures of Vertue and Vice : This
renders it little less than impossible for Nature
to hold out any long Siege against the batteries
of Custom and Opportunity.

46, Let your Wit rather serve you for a
Buckler to defend your self, by a handsome
Reply, than the Sword to wound o^ers, tho'
with never so facetious a Reproach, Remembring
that a Word cuts deeper than a sharper Weapon,
and the wound it makes is longer in curing : A
blow proceeding but from a light motion of the
Hand agitated by Passion, whereas a disgraceful
Speech is the result of a low and base esteem
settled of the Party in your Heart,

47, Much Wisdom resides in the Proverbs of
all Nations, and therefore fit to be taken notice
of: of which number this is common amongst us,
P/ay with me, but hurt tne not, It being Past per-
adventure, that more Duels arise from Jest than

Earnest,

STUDIES, &c. 35

Earnest, and between Friends than Ehemies ;
serious Injuries seldom happening but upon pre-
meditation, which affords Reason some, tho* per-
haps no full Audience ; whereas this extemporary
Spirit conjured up by shame and smart, harkens
to nothing but the rash advice of a present Re-
venge.

48. If an Injury be of so rank a Nature, as
to extort (in point of Honour) an unsavoury Word
(never suitable to the mouth of a Gentleman)
Sword-men advise, to second it with a Blow
by way of prevention, lest he striking first
(which cannot but be expected) you should be
cast behind-hand. But this their Decree not
being confirmed by Act of Parliament^ I cannot
find it suitable with Prudence or Religion, to
make the Sword Umpire of your own Life and
anothers, no less than the Law, upon no more
serious an occasion, than the vindication of your
Fame, lost or gain'd, by this brutish valour, in
the opinion of none that are either wise or pious :
It being out of the reach of question, that a
Quarrel is not to be served up to such a height
of Indiscretion, without arraigning one or both
parties of Madness : Especially since formal Duels
are but a late invention of the Devils, ^ever
heard of, in relation to private Injuries ; among
the Romans the Gladiators fighting for their
Pleasure, as the Horatii and Curatii for the
safety of the People. It cannot be denied, but
that Story lays before us many kill'd for private
revenge, but never accompanied with so ridiculous

a Formality,

36 ADVICE TO A SON

a Formality, as the sending of Challenges^ which
renders the Dead a greater Murtherer than he is
that kills him, as being without doubt the Author
of his own Death. This makes me altogether
believe, that such wild Man-hood had its original
from RomanceSy in which the Gyant is designed
for death, and the Knight to marry the Lady,
whose Honour he hath preserved ; not so gently
treated by the English LaWj where if his Legs or
Friends be not the better, he is hang'd, and his
Estate confiscated, to the perpetual detriment of
his Family : besides the sting of Conscience, and
a natural fear, like that of Cain's^ attending
Blood, by which the remainder of life is made
tedious and miserable to such unfortunate Men,
who seem in all honest Company to smell too
strong of Blood, to be taken into any intimate
Relation.

49. Prosecute not a Coward too far, lest you
make him turn valiant to your disadvantage ;
it being impossible for any standing even in
the World's opinion, to gain glory by the most
he can have of those that lie under such a
repute ; besides. Valour is rather the Product
of Custom^ than Nature^ and often found, where
least expected; do not therefore waken it to
your prejudice, as I have known many, that
would still be Insulting^ and could not see when
they were well.

50. Speak disgracefully of none at Ordinaries
or publick Meetings: Lest some Kinsman, or
Friend, being there should force you to a base

Recantation,

STUDIES, &c. 37

Recantation, or ingage you in a more indiscreet
Quarrel : This renders all Free Discourse dan-
gerous at Meetings or mixed Companies.

51. Carry no Dogs to Courts or any publick
Place, to avoid Contests with such as may spurn,
or endeavour to take them up : The same may
be said of Boys not wise or strong enough to
decline or revenge Affronts, whose Complaints do
not seldom ingage their Masters ; as I knew one
of Quality killed in the Defence of his Page:
The like danger attends such as are indiscreet,
as to Man Whores in the Street, in which every
one pretends to have an Interest for his Mony,
and therefore unwilling to see them monopolized,
especially when they have got a Pot in their Pate.

52. Reveal not the Pranks of anothers Love^
how serious or ridiculous so ever you find them,
it being unlikely the Mirth should compense the
Danger : By this you shall purchase your self a
Retentive Faculiyy and sell your Friend a stronger
Confidence of your Secrecy ; hanging on him the
Lock of a perpetual Obligation, of which you
may ever be keeper of the Key, either out of
Love or Fear : Yet many other Faults are not
more dangerous to commit, than know without
detecting.

53. Be not Trumpet of your own Charity y or
Vices ; for by the one you disoblige the Receiver
as well as lose your Reward ; and by the other,
you alarm the Censures of Men ; most being con-
demned through the Evidence they give against
themselves by their Words and Gestures.

54. If

38 ADVICE TO A SON

54. If it be Levity and Ostentatiotiy to boast
when you do well, in what Class of Folly must
they be ranked, that brag of the Favours of
Women ? Rendering themselves, by this, no less
frail than they ; It being more Shame for a Man
to be leakie and incontinent at the Mouthy than for
a Woman to scatter her Favours,

55. To make Love to married Women doth not
only multiply the Sin, but the Danger ; neither
can you, if questioned by her Husband, use, with
Hope of Victory, any sharper Weapon, than Re-
pentance sheathed in a modest Excuse.

56. Fly, with fosephy the Embraces of great
Ladies ; lest you lose your Liberty, and see your
Legs rot in the Stocks of the Physician \ they
being often Unwholsom, ever so unreasonable, as
to exact a Constancy from you, themselves intend
not to observe ; perverting so far the Curse of God,
as to make your Desires subject to theirs.

57. Usher not Women to Masks\ Plays ^ or
other sudd publick Spectacles to which you have
not an easie Access for Mony or Favour ; such
Places being apter to create Injury, than afford
an handsom Opportunity for Revenge : Besides,
if those you carry be Old and Deformed, they
disparage you ; if Young and Handsom, them-
selves.

TO THE

TO THE READER, CONCERNING
THE FOLLOWING DISCOURSE
OF LOVE AND MARRIAGE

This had not appeared^ being a result of more
juvenile Years^ but that I feared^ if let alone^ it
might hereafter creep abroad from under a false
Impression^ and one mx>re scandalous to that Sex,
than becomes my Complexion or Obligation. There-
forCy to vindicate me from the no less inhumane
than unnatural Imputation of a Woman-Hater, /
do here protest, with a Reference to their Charity
and my own most serious Affections, That if the
Party Advised had been a Daughter, my Ink must
have cast blacker, than the rich Grain of their
Angelical Beauty is capable to be aspersed by. It
being observable. That such Idolaters as made She-
Deities the object of their Worship, were, by all,
celebrated for most Learning, Wisdom and Civility.
Nevertheless, thd Women be Cordials when desire
is past, and Juleps while the Heat continues, ^^/
since it is ordinary, for Dablers in Beauty to mis-
take Poyson for Physick {su^h Feminine Boxes not
always bearing Drugs suitable to their Inscriptions,

but

40 ADVICE TO A SON

but being often Painted with more Perfections^ than
they carry in them) I hope this Discourse may the
better be excused^ having the Example of Solomon
to Justifie the Hardness of my Expressions y no less
than his Follies to warrant the Necessity of the
Caution; lest my Son should mire himself and his
Hopes in the Persuit of such foolish Flames, as
have tempted the Strongest^ Wisest and most
Religious out of the Ways of Peace. I shall fore-
sted the Reader with no farther Complements than
That he would forbear to condemn or praise
beyond Reason; lest he should appear too severe
towards my Levity y or indulgent to his own Moro-
sity in Relation to Beauty.

II. LOVE

11. LOVE AND MARRIAGE

I. Love, like a Burning-glass, Contracts the dilated
Lines of Lust, and fixeth them upon one object ;
bestowed by our fellow-Creatures (the exacter
Observers of the Dictates of Nature) promiscu-
ously, without partiality in affection, on every
distinct Female of their respective Species;
whereas Man, being restrained to a particular
Choice, by the severity of Law, Custom and his
own more stupendous Folly ; out of a jealousie
to be robbed of a present desire, is so hurried
away with the first apparition of an imaginary
beauty, (supposed by his Fancy, grosly abused by
her Servants the Senses, corrupted and subom'd
through an implacable Appetite, which Nature
for her own end of continuance, stirs up in all
to this fleshly Conjunction) that no Reason can
for the present be audible, but what pleadeth in
favour of this soft Passion ; which makes a
deeper or lesser impress, proportionable to the
temper of the Heart it meets with ; causing
Madness in some, Folly in all ; placing, like
stupid Idolaters, Divinity in a silly Creature,
set by the Institutes of Nature in a far inferior
Class of Perfection to that which makes it his

Business

42 ADVICE TO A SON

Business to worship and adore it ; imagining as
false felicities in the fruition, as they apprehend
Miseries in the Loss when all they desire is
but the Fruit of that Tree, the Kernel of that
Apple, which first destroyed us all, fair to sight,
but of fatal and dreadful consequence to the
Taster; rendering him subject to Slavery, that
was born free ; and suffering her to Command,
who ought in righter Reason to Serve and Obey.

2. To cure Youth wholly of this Desire, were
as uneasie a task, as to divest it of Humanity :
Therefore I expect you should be tossed in this
Storm, but would not have you Shipwrecked, by
contracting your self to the Ocean, unless with
the Duke of Venice^ you might yearly repeat the
Ceremony to as great an advantage.

3. For if ever Marriages were on all sides
happy, (which is no Schism to doubt of) experi-
ence never found them ampng such as had no other
dealing, but what they received from the flames
of Love; which cannot hold without Jealousie,
nor break without Repentance, and must needs
render their Sleep unquiet, that have one of these
Cadds or Familiars still knocking over their
Pillow.

4. Those Vertuesy Graces^ and reciprocal Desires^
bewitched Affection expected to meet and enjoy.
Fruition and Experience will find absent, and
nothing left but a painted Box, which Children
and Time will empty of Delight ; leaving Dis-
eases behind, or, at best, incurable Antiquity.

5. Therefore I Charge you, (as you will answer

the

LOVE AND MARRIAGE 43

the contrary another day to your own Discretion,
and upon the penalty of a bitter (tho' vain) Re-
pentance) not to truck for, or entertain Commerce
upon the credit of Marriage^ with a solitary, that
is, an unendowed Beauty (which if really intended,
you question your own Judgment ; if otherwise,
the Honesty of you both :) From whence I have
known such sad Consequents to result, as have
made some (wise enough to presage the mischief
of the event) so far concede to the Tears and
Misery of the Party, as to cast themselves, out of
mere Pity and Conscience, into the precipice
of Marriage ; burying their own Fortunes and
future Felicity, only to satisfie the Affection of
another.

6. Marriage^ like a Trap set for Flies, may
possibly be ointed at the Entrance, w ith a little
Voluptuousness, under which is contained a
draught of deadly Wine, more pricking and
tedious than the Passions it pretends to cure,
leaving the Patient in little quieter condition
in the morning, than him that hath overnight
kill'd a man to gratifie his Revenge.

Eve^ by stumbling at the Serpents solicitations,
cast her Husband out of Paradise ; nor are her
Daughters surer of foot, being foundered by the
heat of Lust and Pride ; and unable to bear
the weight of so much of our Reputation, as
Religion and Custom hath loaded them withal ;
that an unbalasted Behaviour, without other
Leakage, is sufficient to cast away an Husbands
Esteem : Neither doth the Penalty of a Light

Report

1

44 ADVICE TO A SON

Report laid on the MotheVy conclude there, but
diffuseth it self, like a Leprosie, over Posterity,
being uncapable of any other cure, than length
of time can deduce out of forgetfulness.

7. It were something yet, if Marriage could
ansiver the expectation of all she boasts the cure
of, in the large Bill our Mountebank Teachers
proclaim in every street ; which, upon trial, she
often comes so far short of, as to satisfie none,
but rather aggravates the sins of Solitude, making
simple Fornication to sprout into Adultery. And
if it happen that your Wife be impotent or
infected (as not a few are) with one or more
of those loathsom Diseases incident to weak
feminine nature, which render her unsociable, you
are posted off, both by Lawyers and Divines,
to the same Patience, I do here more opportunely
propose, before you are fallen under so mis-
chievous and expensive a Conjunction.

8. If none of my perswasions, nor others
woful Experience, daily met with in the World,
can deter you from yoaking your self to anothers
desires, make not a Celebrated Beauty the Object
of your Choice ; unless you are ambitious of
rendring your House as populous as a Confec-
tioners Shop ; to which the gaudy Wasps, no less
than the liqourish Flies, make it their Business to
resort, in hope of obtaining a lick at your Hony-
pot ; which tho' bound up with the strongest
obligations or resolutions, and sealed by never
so many protestations, yet Feminine Vessels are
obnoxious to so many frailties, as they can hardly

bear

LOVE AND MARRIAGE 45

bear without breaking, the Pride and Content,
they naturally take in seeing themselves adored :
Neither can you, according to the loose Custom of
England^ decently restrain her from this Con-
course, without making demonstration of Jealousie
towards her (by which you confess your self a
Cuckold in your own Imagination already) or
Incivility to such as come to Visit you ; tho' it
may be strongly presumed, your sake hath the
least share in this Ceremony, however tied in
Manners to attend with patience, till his Worships
perhaps his Lordships had pump'd his Wit dry,
having no more Complements left but to take
leave : Thus, with his Invention rebated, but not
his Lust, he returns home; where the old pre-
server of Bawdry, his Kinswoman, perceiving, by
his dejected Countenance, that he came short of
his desires, and wanting a new Gown, imbarks
her self for the employment ; and to put the
honester Face upon so ugly a design, she con-
tracts a straight alliance with your (yet possibly
unconquered) Bed-fellow, and under pretence of
a Gossipping, or perhaps a Voyage to some
Religious Exercise, hurries her away in his
Honouf's Coach to a Meeting-House, where
tho' she be taken by Storm, is fairly sent home
with Bag and Baggage, being only plundered
of what you are not likely to miss ; and finding
it unsafe to complain, returns again upon her
Parole, or so often as her new Governor pleaseth
to summon her, sheltering the fault under Custom,
your unavoidable Fate, or perhaps Providence

(which

1

46 ADVICE TO A SON

(which for their excuse, some are wicked enough
to plead) till her Forehead be as much hardened
with Impudence, as yours is with Reproaches, Src.
And yet he is the happier owner, who hath a
Wife wise enough to conceal the real Horns of
her Husband, than she, that being Innocent, doth
by her light Carriage make the base Symptoms
appear in the World's Opinion : Oh remember
this, when you are about to forget the Pleasure
and Safety, only to be found in a Single Life.

If you consider Beauty alone, quite discharged
from such Debentures^ as she owes to the Arts
of Tire- Women^ Taylors^ Shoemakers, and perhaps
Painters, you will find the remains so inconsider-
able, as scarce to deserve your present Thoughts,
much less to be made the price of your Perpetual
Slavery : Be not then led, like a Child, by these
gaudy Butterflies, amongst the Bryers and Nettles
of the World ; since obtained, a little Time and
Use will wear off their Faiding Colours, leaving
nothing in your Possession but a bald, drowsie
Moth; which if Good, will by accident, if Bad,
make it her business to discontent you.

9. The English Laws are composed so far in
favour of Wives, as if our Ancestors had sent
Women to their Parliaments, whilest their Heads
were a wool-gathering at Home, allowing no
abusing of Husbands Capital, nor Marriage dis-
solvable, but in case of Adultery, not subject to
proof but under the Attests of two Witnesses at
one and the same Time: Nor is non-cohabita-
tion a sufficient Discharge from his keeping all

such

LOVE AND MARRIAGE 47

such Children, as her Lust shall produce during
his aboad between the Four English Seas ; so as
if his Wife be a Strumpet^ he must Banish him-
self, or deal his Bread and Cloaths to the spurious
Issue of a Stranger ; a Thraldom, no Wise-man
would sell himself to for the fairest Inheritance,
much less for Trouble, Vexation and Want,
during Life. Whence it may be strongly pre-
sumed, that the Hand of Policy (which first or
last brings all things expedient to Human Society,
under the Imperious Notion of Religion) hung
this Padlock upon the Liberty of Men, and after
Custom had lost the Key, the Churchy according
to her wonted Subtilty, took upon her to protect
it ; delivering in the Charge to the People, that
single Wedlock was by Divine Right, making the
contrary, in diverse places. Death, and where she
proceeded with the greatest Moderation, Excom-
munication: Condemning thereby (besides four
fifth Parts of the World) the Holy Patriarchs,
who among their so frequent Dialogues held with
their Maker, were never Reprov'd for multiplying
Wives and Concubines; reckoned to David as a
Blessing ; and to Solomon for a mark of Magnifi-
cence. Nevertheless the wily Priests are so
tender of their own Conveniences, as to forbid all
Marriage to themselves upon as heavy a punish-
ment as they do Poligamy unto others : Now if
nothing capable of the Name of Felicity was
ever, by men or Angels, found to be denied to the
Priesthood, may not Marriage be strongly sus-
pected to be by them thought out of that List ?

Tho'

48 ADVICE TO A SON

Tho' to render it the more glib to the wider
swallow of the long abused Laity^ they have gilt
it with the glorious Epithet of a Sacramenty which
yet they loath to clog their own Stomachs withall.
However the patient submission to the Institution
of Marriage is the more to be wondered at, since
Man and Woman not being allowed of equal
strength, are so far prevailed upon by Policy^ as
quietly to submit themselves to one Yoke.

10. Yet this may be said for it, that as men
suffer themselves to be bound when they are cut
of the Stone or any sharp disease, being conscious
of their want of Resolution or Constancy ; from
whence the Wise Operator takes so g^eat an
advantage, as not to let them loose, till they
have obtained their Cure : So the grave Law
settles by this way our wild and wandering
Affections, converting them to the publick benefit,
perswading such as are willing to hear her, That
A Wife is a Medicine both for strong and weak,
quenching the fire of the one, no less than
restoring the heat of the other ; being the true
and shorter part of the Tally, without which
Man can render no just Account of his Life ;
though too smooth and oily to climb Heaven,
unless mingled with the Vinegar of Marriage.

1 1 . Nevertheless there is not in Private Persons
any other necessary Constraint to this Conjunction^
but what results from Understandings so muffled
for the present, that they cannot discern, that
Marriage is a Clog fastened to the Neck of
Liberty, by the jugling hand of Policy, that

provides

LOVE AND MARRIAGE 49

provides only for the general Necessities of all
in gross, not the particular Conveniences of
Single Persons ; who, by this, give stronger
Security to the Commonwealth, than suits with
Prudence or Liberty. And to such as ask, How
should the World subsist, did all observe the
like Caution ? It may be answered, As well as
without Unthrifts, who by spending their Estates
profusely, make way for wiser men to be the
more happy ; and as it is impossible to find a
Dearth of the latter, tho' not compelled thereunto
by any other Law, than the Instigation of their
own- Follyy so doubt not but there will be
enough found of the former, to stock the World,
without putting so chargable an Experiment on
your own Conveniency.

12. We brook nothing well. Restraint ties us
to ; therefore some take more Content in sharing
a Mistress with others, than they can find in the
sole Fruition of a Wife : The Reason is. Strangers
are taken for Dainties ^ Wives as Physick, Riches
and Honour were in the same Predicament, but
that they still leave something behind to be
desired ; Lust nothing, beyond the Repetition
of the same again, which after a few Enjoyments
grows tedious. Other Courses weary us with
the Change^ this with Continuance.

13. Ask your self. What Desire you ever
attained, that a long and often repeated Fruition
did not render tedious, if not loathsom, tho* the
thing wished for remained in the perfection it was
before Enjoyment ? And can your Reason promise

D you,.

50 ADVICE TO A SON

you, to continue the same unto Beauty ; so
transitory, as it is in a manner lost, before
you can truly consider, whether it belongs to
Nature, or the Dress : Therefore when discon-
tented with your present Condition, tumble
towards any Change, rather th^n into that bot-
tomless Pit, out of which no Repentance can bail
you.

14. After that Age^ Weariness^ Wisdom, or
Business hath dispossessed you of this dumb and
deaf Amorous Spirit^ and concluded all Desires
to Uxorious Vanities ; it is possible your Wife's
Appetite may increase, and that Disease of Lust^
which your Youth cured before she had leisure to
discover it, may then unseasonably interrupt your
Sleep ; calling for that, there shall be nothing in
her, but Importunity, to provoke you to ; nor in
you, but the desire of Quiet, and to conjure down
the fierce Devil Jealousies which haunts the
Houses of Married Folks, rendring them no less
unhappy, dismal and clamorous, than the Temple
of Mobchy where such Children and Servants, as
you most delight in, shall pass through the Fire
of daily contention. ^

15. Were it possible to assign to your Choice
tke Virtues of your Mother (which I Confess are
inferior to none) and fancy a Son^ with as rich
Parts as imagination is able to endow a Creature
withal ; yet a Daughter may come, that for want
of good Behaviour, or Care in Marriage^ shall
infuse so much Gall into your Cup, as will be
able to imbitter all the Pleasures taken in the

rest :

LOVE AND MARRIAGE 51

rest : Or if you shall escape this in regard of one,
the least Deformity happening to any of the
others, will cause more Grief, than all the Toward-
liness of the most Perfect can out-talk.

16. Our Bedlam Eve^ to save her longing,
sold us all for an Apple ; and still as we fall into
the same desires, apprehending felicities in things
we never triedy we are carried away by her peevish
Daughters, the true Syrens wise Ulysses stopt his
Ears against, who under Pretence of Pleasure and
Love, lead us into Dens and obscure Holes of
the Rocks, where we consume our precious Time
and bury our Parts, (which, might enable us to
Despise or Honour this World as best suited our
Complexions) feeding, all our Lives, upon the dry
Bones of Want and Affliction, and like ActCBon
torn by our Families : Nothing being more cer-
tain, than that a married Man changeth the Shape
of Natural Freedom, and inrols himself among
such as are rendred Beasts of Burthen under
Reason of State ; whereas those unclog'd with this
Yoke, if they like not the Service and Discipline
of their own, may the easier exchange it for that
of any other Commonwealth.

17. Tho' nothing can wholly disengage Mar*

riage from such Inconveniences , as may obstruct iy

Felicity, yet they are best palliated under a great
Estate ; all other Arguments for it receiving com-
monly Confutation from Time and Experience, or
are evaporated by Fruition ; Birth imposing a
Necessity of Charge, as Beauty doth of Jealousie,
if not of a bad Report ; Innocency being often

found

52 ADVICE TO A SON

found too weak to guard it self from the Poyson
of Tongues.

1 8. The true extent of her Estate therefore is
first to be surveyed, before you entail your self
upon the Owner : And, in this common Fame is
not to be trusted, which for the most part dilates
a Portion or Jointure beyond its natural Bounds,
proving also not seldom litigious, and that found
given by Will^ questionable ; by which Husbands
are tied to a Black-Box, more miserable than that
of Pandora; there being in the Law hope of
nothing but Trouble and Injustice. Neither do
Widows seldom put their Estates out of their own
Reach, the better to cheat their Husbands, per-
verting so far the course of Nature, as to make
him thrash for a Pension, who ought to Command
all. This requires Love to be ushered into his
undissolvable Noose, by Discretion, since it hath
rarely fallen within the compass of Example, that
both Parties (if wise) should be cordially pleased
with their bargain : Therefore the Yoke of Mar-
riage had need be lined with the richest stuff, and
softest outward conveniences, else it will gall your
Neck and Heart, so, as you shall take little com-
fort in the Vertue, Beauty, Birth, &c, of her to
whom you are coupled.

19. As the fertility of the ensuing year is
guessed at, by the height of the River NiluSj so
by the greatness of a Wives Portion may much of
the future conjugal Happiness be calculated : For,
to say truth, a poor Marriage^ like a Father's
Theft or Treason, entails shame and misery upon

Posterity,

/-

LOVE AND MARRIAGE 53

Posterity, who receive little warmth from the
Virtue, much less from the Beauty of their
Mother.

The best of Husbands are Servants, but he
that takes a Wife wanting Mony^ is a slave to his
Affection, doing the basest of Drudgeries without
wages. Experience cries in the Streets that he
who takes his Maid into the Marriage bed, finds
her no less imperious a Mistress, than he that is
coupled in the highest Link. For such as bring
nothing, esteem themselves slighted, if they com-
mand not all ; whereas better Educations are
apter to confess an Obligation, than those basely
born.

20. Yet take one who thinks herself rather
beneath than above you in Birth : since Honour-
able Persons as is reported of Eagles Feathers^ in
a Bedy consume all not of the same plume : Riches
were in a like predicament, in relation to Pride^
but easier passed by, because best able to bear the
charges of her own Folly ; whereas Lean Honour^
like Pharaoh's Kine^ devours the Gentry with
whom they match, by multiplying the quantity of
their Expences.

21. I confess Vast Estates are not so sensible
of the Inconveniences of poor Marriages ; as
having, besides greater Diversions, the staff of
Power to keep the lean Wolf from the Door : i^
Want being no less the original of most Sins,

than the Mother of all Plagues ; so as the depth
of Poverty calling upon the bottomless Pit of
Despair^ tempts the ill-bred Son^ for want of

better

54 ADVICE TO A SON

better education (to change a Life, he thinks can-
not be made more wretched) to Marry the
Chamber-Maid ; by which the no less unadvised
Daughter learns to run awa^ with the Groom.
Do not the careful Looks of all Fathers give
V evidence to the truth of that saying, Children
are uncertain Comforts but certain Troubles,

22. Therefore {dear Son) if you find your self
smitten with this Poysoned Dart, imitate his
Prudence, who chose rather to cast himself into
the Arms of the Sea, and Travel, than to let his
Hopes and Parts wither in those of a poor
whining Dido^ who is no more able to give you
Caution, for the continuance of her own Affection
than you are of yours, or of her Beauty.

23. I have heard a well-built Woman com-
pared, in her motion, to a Ship under Sail ; yet I
would advise no wise man to be her Owner, if
her Fraught be nothing but what she carries
between Wind and Water.

A neat Wench, like a fair Picture, may adorn a
Room for a General Commerce, or like a painted
Inn-post, may tempt you as a Stranger, to while
away some scorching hours ; but to hang her in
your Heart, and turn Host to a bare Holly-Bush,
is so high a Blasphemy against Discretion, that it
would not only exceed repentance, but pity and
forgiveness, especially in relation to you, who
have had these Rocks marked out on all sides, by
the Advice or Splinters of an indulgent Father.

24. But if once you render your self a Pupil
to whining Love, he will read you such contrary

Politicks,

LOVE AND MARRIAGE 55

Politicks^ as shall perswade you to make a
League with Misery, and embrace Beggery for a
Friend ; and after this, you are capable of no
higher Honour, than to be Registred in one of
his Martyrological Ballads, and sung by Dairy
Maids to a pitiful Tune.

25. To conclude, if you will needs be a
Familist, and Marry y muster not the want of Issue
among your greatest afflictions, as those do, that
cry. Give me Childretty or else my Name dies ; the
poorest way of Immortalizing that can be, and as
natural to a Cobler as a Prince, and not seldom
out-reacht by a Grave-stone : This proves them
no Fools that make their own choice, by Adoption^
out of the Mass of Humanity, not confining them-
selves to such as the doubtful Chance of Marriage
obliged them to ; since Wives do worse than
miscarry, that go their full time of a Fool with
a bossive Birth ; yet less Ugliness resides in the
greatest personal Deformity, than in an ordinary
Mulct of the Mind ; nor can there be a greater
dissemblance between one wise man and another,
tho' strangers in blood, than daily falls out
betwixt them and their own Issue ; so as it
is rarely observed, that a Prudent Father begets
a like Son ; in which. Nature proclaims, Things
of Moment not made for Stallions^ and to bury
their rich Talents in the tedious Commerce and
loathsom sheets of a silly Woman. And if we
consult right Reason, not Opinion, more of our
Blood runs in a Brother than in a Child ; the surer
side being always a stranger to the Family ; the

truth

ADVICE TO A SON

is, they are really no more ours, than the
; of our Hair, or the parings of our Nails,
ing often such thought towards us, as we
d detest any for, but them ; made ours
r by Use than Nature, as appears in the
)f God's Creatures, who look no longer after
young, than whitest they are unable to shift
fiemselves : This also speaks an immoderate
)w for their Loss, as impertinent, as the like
•e to procure them ; none being truly capable
elicity, that situate it out of the Extent of
own Reach, or are over-passionately affected
other Foreign Misery, than what doth purely
tg to themselves.

!. But if this savours too much of the Stoick,
may qualifie it as you please ; for I doubt
but the Zeal your Youth doth yet retain
rds the Creed and Practice of others (possibly
lo well taught) may at present make much of

look like Blasphemy : But when so many
:ers have snowed on your Head, as on your
er's, you will think it Canonical, and fit to be
to Posterity.

TO THE WOMEN READERS, CON-
CERNING THE FOREGOING
DISCOURSE OF LOVE AND
MARRIAGE

Tho' the multitude^ that Crowd of Errour and
Mistakes^ like Corn^ hang their Ears^ and situate
their Judgments^ not according to the constant
Aspect of Reasony but the mutable and sensless
Inspiration of Fools and CritickSy commonly their
Nurses, and according to whose Dialect this childish
Monster is taught to prate ; yet I did not appre-
hend it so deaf to its own interest, and the pitiful
Voice of woful Experience, as to imagine any thing,
looking like a Mote in the Felicity of a Married
Man, which becomes not a Beam in the more
tender Eye of a Wife ; to whom the Cruelty of a
Tyrannical Custom hath allotted the heaviest, and
most uneasie end of the Chain: Thought by me
sufficiently intimated in that Epistle, set on pur-
pose before this Section of Love and Marriage, to
stay the Reader from any Misprision, the drowsiest
Ignorance could lead him. into, for want of that
Counterpain relating to Women ; looked upon, at

that

58 ADVICE TO A SON

that tinUy as impertinent to insert^ the Party I then
laboured for to Arnty being a Son.

Therefore I hope I shall not need to implore all
the Candor attending your other Excellencies,
whose smallest Skirt will be sufficient to cover m,e
from the Strife of Tongues^ voicing this a new-
caught'-up Opinion^ or that 1 detest more, a base
Recantation ; by which I should foully betray a
Heart no less ready to be your Footstool in Age,
than it was one of your Triumphant Chariots
during Youth : This being merely intended to stay
the loose Rabble from dropping into any further
prejudice of my Innocency, by an equal ballancing of
the Accounts of Marriage ; seldom reaching the
Content of both, especially where the Groom is
wholly led in by Love, and the Bride hath nothing
more permanent to aaompany her, than Beauty and
Youth.

For if the Master of the Cabin finds a Bed-
fellow with her Concomitance, not only troublesom
to stow, but an impediment inconsistent with his
own Safety, during such a rough Storm of Intestine
War, as my Quill was tossed in when first laden
with this Advice, His Mate cannot in ordinary
Discretion, be imagined to lie easie, who besides her
own particular Grievances, hath his Dangers also
to affright her ; and by burning the Regency of a
Mistress in the Vassalage of Marriage, doth not
only grow less in the former Esteem her Husband
had of her, whilest he lay under the strongest In-
cantation of an unsatisfied Desire, but ventures the
forfeiture of that Ancient Charter, by which Free

Beauty

TO THE WOMEN READERS 59

Beauty is allowed a Pasport through all Nations
where Civility or Honour Commands : Rendring
her self in all distempered Times {where single she
might remain in a harmless Neutrality) obnoxions to
an ill Treatment from the contrary Party to that her
Owners Fortune^ Folly or Friendship hath con-
tracted him. to.

ThuSy like the Angels sent to the rescue of Lot,
Women do not only run the Hazard of their own
Contamination by Marriage, to draw Men out of
the Sins, no less than Punishments impending the
Barren • and Unnatural Delights of Solitude, but
alter their Shapes, and embrace their Celestial
Beauties, when by discharging their Husbands of
the Venom of Love, they swell the^mselves into the
Bulk and Dangers of Childbearing ; losing their
own Name and their Families, to perpetuate that of
a m.ere Stranger : And besides all this, they in
their highest Ruff, can be looked upon but as the
best of Servants ; having nothing theirs, in a more
proper Sense, than a Child hath, whose Father
allows him to call any thing His, thd without
Leave he may not dispose of the smallest part.
Nor, in case of Melancholy Discontent, {not seldom
haunting every Comer of their Family, which
Women are tied to Cure, or keep Company with)
, can they find such ready and safe Diversions, as the
Ways of Men are in all places strewed withal;
who being freer from Fear or Shame {shackles
which Mens own Law and Custom, not Nature or
fustice hath cast in the way of the Wives Felicity)
they m£et such Content abroad, as is with-held from

your

6o ADVICE TO A SON

your Sex under the Key of Conscience, or covered
from your Desires by the Veil of Modesty, or not
tpossibly laid beyond Reach, for want of so easie
teps of Opportunity.

Yet besides these visible Disadvantages, Married
'omen lye under a number that deserve the Name
' corroding Plagues, which the severity of their
^odesty, by Custom made Natural, forbids them to
veal, and against whose Tyrannical furisdiction
ey may be thought to Rebel, that should endeavour

muster them up: For in a small time the
atient obtains his Cure, and the Physitian becomes
fected with the same Desires, Fruition hath dis-
'arged the Husband of ; who doth consider his
vn remedy as a Drug easily matched, if not ex-
eded, by such as may be found under every Hedge ;
■ying it aside, like a perfumed Glove, with whose
veetness his Senses are so sated by Use, as he can
•fprehend little Delight in it ; tho' Strangers,
<kose Byes are not bleared by Fruition, look upon
'.r as the Sun, which retains the same Splendour
'le had at first, not being 'KcW^^A so much from
iy Defect of Nature in itself as by the Clouds
nsing in the Husband's Famy, from a daily
'ommerce ; through which, tho' his Love be ditni-
ished, the Wives is increased, if not from Affection
it by an Imposition of Necessity ; Men being to be
umbered among such Diseases, as are sometimes
mtinued with a less train of inconveniences than
irted withal. Whereas if that Sweet Sex re-
tained still in the state of Innoceney, not contem-
laHng any other Perfections but their own, they

TO THE WOMEN READERS 6i

might be adored for Beauty during Youth, and
reverenced for Virtue in Age : And by putting this
restraint upon the Felicity of Men, bring them to an
Honourable Composition^ as the Sabine-Ladies did
the Romans.

To conclude, if Men, tlie most absolute Masters
of their Choice and Employments, find occasion of
Discontent, under this undissolvable Conjunction,
who can value Womans disadvantage, whose
Actions, no less than their intrinsical Desires must
be subject to, and wait the leisure of their Hus-
bands ?

III. TRAVEL

III. TRAVEL

Some to starch a more serious face upon wanton,
impertinent, and dear-bought Vanity, cry up
Travel^ as the best Accomplisher of Youth and
Gentry^ tho' detected by Experience in the
generality, for the greatest Debaucher ; adding
Affectation to Folly, and Atheism to the Curiosity
of many not well principled by Education : Such
Wanderers imitating those Factors of Solomon^
that together with Gold, returned Apes and Pea-
cocks.

They, and only they, advantage themselves by
Travely who, well fraught with the Experience of
what their own Country affords, carry over with
them large and thriving Talents, as those Servants
did, commended by our Saviour : For he that
hath nothing to venture but poor, despicable and
solitary Parts, may be so far from Improvement,
as he hazards quite to lose and bury them in the
external Levity of France^ Pride of Spain^ and
Treachery of Italy ; because not being able to take
acquaintance abroad of more Prudence, than he
meets with in the Streets and other Publick
Places, the activity of his Legs and Arms may
possibly be augmented, and he, by tedious Com-
plements,

TRAVEL 63

plements, become more acceptable in the eyes of
silly Women, but useless, if not pernicious, to the
Government of his own Country, in creating doubts
and dislikes by way of a partial Comparison.

2. Yet since it advanceth Opinion in the Worlds
without which Desert is useful to none but it self
(Scholars and Travellers being cried up for the
highest Graduates in the most universal Judg-
ments) I am not much unwilling to give way to
Peregrine motion for a time, Provided it be in
Company of an Ambassador or Person of Quality ;
by whose power the Danger may be rebated, no
less than your Charge of Diet defrayed ; incon-
siderable in such a Retinue, as Persons of their
Magnitude are forced to entertain.

3. Or if your Genius (tempted by Profit)
incline to the life of a Merchant^ you have the
Law of Nations, and Articles of a reciprocal
Amity to protect you from other inconveniences,
than such as indiscretion draws upon rash and
unadvised Strangers.

And thus mann'd out, Your Experience may
receive Lading at the first hand^ when others,
failing of the like Advantages, must take up that
little they make, at the common Beam ; yet pay
more Custom, and run greater hazards than the
whole Return, when cast up, is able to com-
pense.

4. Or in Case this Nation should again break
out into Partialities it may not be ill prudence, to
go where you may have the prospect of War
with safety, whoever prevail : And for the Place,

I say

*y

J

64 ADVICE TO A SON

I say France^ if you have a Purse ; else some
Town in the Netherlands or Flanders^ that is
wholesom and safe ; where French may be attained
with little more difficulty than at Paris ; neither
are the Humours of the People so very remote
from your own.

Now if it be your Fortune, on any such like
Accounts to leave your native Country, take these
Directions from a Fatlter, wearied (and therefore
possibly made wiser) by Experience,

5. Let not the Irreligion of any Place breed in
you a neglect of Divine Duties ; Remembering,
God heard the Prayers of Daniel in Babylon^ with
the same Attention he gave to David in Sion.

6. Shun all Disputes, but concerning Religion
especially ; because that which Commands in
chief, tho' False and erroneous, will, like a Cock
on's own Dunghill, line her Arguments with
force, and drive the Stranger out of the Pit with
insignificant Clamours. All Opinions, not made
Natural by Complexion, or imperious Education,
being equally ridiculous to those of contrary
Tenets.

But where you find such Discourse, unavoid-
ably obtruded, mould your Arguments rather
into Queries, than dogmatical Assertions ; pro-
fessing it more the business of Travellers, to
Learn than Teach: This, besides the removal of
Jealousies, will proclaim you Civil, and not bury
the hope of a future Complyance ; muzling the
mouths of the rigid Zelots (who think none
worthy of Life, found out of the Train of their

own

TRAVEL 65

own Opinions) no fess than engaging the more
moderate, rather to pity you, as one misled,
than accuse you for wilful and contumacious ;
Observing herein the Prudence of our Saviour^
who prohibits the casting of Pearls before such,
as are more likely to employ them to your
Damage, than their own Edification : And there-
fore Silence ought not in Reason to be reckoned
for a desertion of Truth, where it cannot be
maintained, but to the prejudice of what the
Imperative Power hath declared so to be.

A Sceptick humour^ as it is most suitable to
any Man out of Power, so especially if he
Travels ; less offence being taken at Doubters^
than such as boldly undertake to Determine;
there not always remaining a necessity, either
in Religion or Discretion, to give a positive
Answer; as appears by Christy who did not
seldom oppose one ambiguous Question against
another no less dangerous to resolve : Therefore
you may be as well a Murderer as a Martyr,
if you run unadvisedly into Ruin.

7. Keep your Zeal chain'd for a Guard to
your Conscience, not letting it fly upon such
things as Custom hath not made it familiar
withal, (Remembering, that the Sadducees, who
denied Angels and Spirits, are not Registred
for such implacable Enemies to our Saviour, as
the Pharisees^ who confessed both :) The fury of
which Passion hath transported some so far, as
to strike the Eucharist out of the Priests hands,
that carried it, choosing, like giddy Phaetons, to

E burn,

66 ADVICE TO A SON

burn, rather than not manifest themselves (un-
seasonably) the Children of God.

8. Do not imitate their Follies, who conceit
themselves bound in Honour to assert all Customs
used in the Places they come from ; which besides
contraction of Quarrels, brands such Sophisters
with the imputation of a partial Incivility :
Custom being of that insinuating nature, as it can
convert into the shape of Comeliness, Diet,
Apparel, Gestures, Opinions and Sins, that to a
Stranger, may appear most distastful, ugly, un-
couth and unnatural : This renders a Defence of
the Errors of your own Country as undecent, as
the too loud proclaiming of them is shameful and
unworthy.

As it is neither mannerly nor safe to discom-
mend any thing used abroad, so likewise is it dis-
advantageous ; for by Commendation you shall the
better scrue out the true Opinion themselves have
of it, which upon your dislike will be concealed
or heightned, out of shame, or ostentation.

9. Fall not into Comparisons; For what doth
it concern the advancement of Wisdom, whether
London^ or PariSy St. Marlins Church or PauTs be
the fairest. The like modesty must be observed
at your return home ; lest you should seem to
have lost, in your Travel through other Nations,
the Natural Affection so justly due to your Own ;
which may raise suspicion of a change, either in
your Religion or Allegiance.

10. Condemn none with too much severity j you
find in never so palpable an Error of Judgment or

Manners,

TRAVEL 67

Manners^ (which for the most part are merely
respective to Time and Place) lest you should
bait a Trap with a Precedent strong enough one
day, to catch your self: All things we stile Sitiy
lying in the bowels of Men, as Metals do in the
Earth, under an equal party, till Policy^ for the
benefit of Commerce, stamps them with the Image
of the Devil, and on their Ranverse, Punishment
and Shame : No more proper to them by Nature,
than for Gold or Silver to bear the Impress and
Superscription of a Prince, before it be Coined,
and made Current, or Prohibited by Law, the
Master of the Mint, in relation to Good and
Evil,

Tho' it may suit no less with your Years,
than mine that advise you, to follow swch. fashions
in Apparel, as are in use as well at home as
abroad, those being least gazed on that go as
most men do; yet it cannot be justified before
the face of Discretion, or the Charity due to your
own Country-men, to esteem no Doublet well
made, nor Glove worth wearing, that hath not
passed the hands of a French Tayvor, or retains
not the Scent of a Spanish Perfumer, A Vanity
found incident to England, and the People, our
ordinary account reckons East of us : A strong
presumption, the last arrived within the Pale
of Civility, else they would be more confident
of their own Inventions, had they not still fresh
in Memory, from whence they derived the Arts
of Building, Cloaths, Behaviour, &c. A Fancy>
tho' foolish, yet easier excused, did not ascend

to the

68 ADVICE TO A SON

to the more rare, and useful Endowments of the
Mindy so far as to put a miraculous estimation
upon the Writings of Strangers^ and a base
Alloy on better of their own: Since, upon a
strict examination, the moist Heads of these
colder Climates may be found to have dropped
as pure Reason, as the nearer approach of the
Sun was ever yet able to draw from the more
tosted Brains of Spain, Italy, or France. There-
fore launch not too suddenly into a rough and
deep Censure of such Authors, as you find go
contrary to the high Tide of Opinion for the
present, lest compelled to a Retractation, you
confess your self apt to be misled by the common
prejudice daily found in the ways of desert : As
such must needs be, that would have Casheered
Bacon^s Advancement of Learning, as an Heretical
and impertinent piece, but for an invincible
strength of contrary Judgments that came to
his Rescue from beyond the Seas : English Men
bearing a greater Reverence to the Votes, and
a less prejudice to the Inventions of Strangers,
than their own ; else our Authors need not to
Travel for Repute, especially at that time when
our Pulpits, no less than Theaters, condemned
of Ignorance all the known World besides. For
however it might be with us in the time of
Edward the fourth, and notwithstanding the
Character Philip de Comines gives to the blunt-
ness of the English Pens, were then no hyperbole,
yet now no Reader unmufled by Malice or
Ignorance, but must acknowledge that the late

King

TRAVEL 69

King did not only in that vanquish all near
his Rank, that almost ever went before him :
But hath left many, tho' short of his parts,
very well able to grapple with the choicest of
other Princes Subjects.

11. If the Wisdom of the States of Holland
were warily observed (who give no other answer
for the present, to any new Proposition, but Pent
estre^ m English^ It may be so; by which means
they civilly evade a peremptory asserting or deny-
ing the validity of any Argument) The Hell of
the Inquisition would not be so replenished with
the Souls of poor unadvised Christians ; who,
made giddy with an impertinent Zeal, and confi-
dent in the Promises of the treacherous Jesuits
of their Country Men (that have ways enough to
betray you, without discovering themselves) com*
municate to them prohibited Booksj in Hope to
Convert them (which I advise you by no means
to carry with you :) This M. Mole found true in
a tedious and sharp Captivity, reported to be
betrayed by Sir T. M. at the Instigation of the
Lord R. to whom he was assigned Tutor, by the
Earl of Ex,

12. To the Eucharist f met in the Streets,
(through which it is often born to the Houses of
the Sick), Custom, no less than the Injunction of
the Magistrate, obligeth all to kneel or bow : The
which if a Stranger neglects, he is liable to the
Inquisitors : Now if it be an Idol, St. Paul saith
an Idol h nothing ; and if it renders the Meat
Offered unto it no ways distastful to a sound Con-
science,

70 ADVICE TO A SON

science, how should it deprave me to be un-
covered, as the rest are ? It being palliated, if not
decided this way, in case of Naman,
*uke of Saxony ; whom Luther per-
isist the Emperor Charles the Fifth at
ily to Preserve a Temporal Dignity,
with the Title of Civil respect.
, rather than spurn at those you see
efore a Crucifix ; considering we find
, by the Penner of the Practice of
often Printed, to carry the Marks of
:ontrary to the genuine Mind of the
Church) that all Communicants at the
their Receiving, should imagine the
Christ upon the Cross. And if so, doth
; room for a Query, who is the most
e that makes to himself a Representa-
Heart, or on the Wall ? Yet this, with
laid before you only as an Adviso, not
T-Block, and Occasion of Offence,
a- no farther into Foriegn Churches
ind of your own Religion and Con-
is you : For, tho' the Body of their
J not take you, the higher expressions
id Austerity (in the preciser sort of
1, and People, taken for the Soul of
)ns) may seem to discover some defects
1 ; and so, displeased on all sides, you
the Rock of Atheism ; as such do,
he Merits and Sanctity of Christ, by
■etends to be his Vicar ; and all Moral
the scant Standard, they find it
measured

TRAVEL 71

measured by at Rome, where they put out the
Eyes of the less advised with the dust of
Antiquity, which we seeming to want, are not so
catching to those, not wise enough to look behind
the Curtain of Formalities.

Yet where Conscience and Reason give you
leave to comply (as possibly they may in many
things) do it ingenuously, without compulsion
or dint of an Argument ; lest, opposing a Truth
upon the By, you give them Cause to think you
guilty of Falshood in the Main.

1 5 . Consort with none who Scoff at their own
Religion, but shun them as Spies or Atheists ;
for Strangers honour them most, next to those
of their respective Tenents, that are Modestly
zealous in the observation of their own.

16. Eschew the company of all English you
find in Orders; for as they have imitated the
lapsed Angels, in falling from their first Station,
so they bear the like malevolence to all they
despair of bringing into the same Condemnation ;
being for the most part despicable, poor and
melancholy ; the Protestants eying them as
Apostates, and the Catholicks as Fugitives and
unprofitable devourers of the Natives Bread.
Thus young Scholars^ because not able to reach
all they desire at Home, like Prodigals abandon
the bosom of their Mother, unadvisedly casting
themselves into that of want and reproach ;
Viscount Monfs Brother being but a Porter
to a Religious House, and many of the rest
exposed to such hard and desperate Missions

into

72 ADVICE TO A SON

into the Indies and other remote Climates, as
their Lives are rendered no less tedious than
uncertain.

17. Besides he that beyond Sea frequents his
'intrymen, forgets the principal part of his
, Language; and possibly the opportunity
Experience how to manage his Expence ;
ty being of none so perfectly learned,
le Italian and Scot; Natural to the first,
necessary to the latter. The English also
erved abroad more quarrelsom with their
ition than Strangers, and therefore marked
Jie most dangerous Companions.
An Injury in Foreign Air is cheaper
over than revenged, the endeavour of
hath (not seldom) drawn on a greater :
, If Patience and Evasion be not learned
r Travel, the Bills you have taken up may
I be discharged, as to the Merchant, but
pst in regard of any return of Profit to such
lerate men, as suffer themselves to be
rted with their Passions ; since he that is
of them, shall act and speak reason, when
destitute of that Moderation, appear mad,
I nothing but Noise.

Play is destructive and fatal to Estates
vhere, but to the Persons of Gamesters
rendring them the Objects of Cheating
larrels ; all By-standers being apt to attest
prejudice of a Stranger.
He that desires Quiet, and to decline
Is, (undertaken by Strangers upon irrepar-
able

TRAVEL 73

able disadvantage) most above all, avoid giving
or receiving Favours from Women; there being
none out the List of common Whores, any way-
acceptable, to which some Ruffian (in Italy
called Braves^ who will murder a Man for a
Crown) doth not pretend an interest, either as a
Husband, a Kinsman, or a Servant : Neither are
they safely conversed withal, in relation to
Health ; participating so far of the Nature of
Devils, that they are not only instrumental in the
Sin, but many times also in the Punishment.

Make not the Promise of Marriage a Baud to
your Lust^ nor think her Fruit worth owning,
shall yield possession upon no more formal Obli-
gation ; presuming then if she can dispence with
the Ceremony, by which Law only makes her
yours, it is no less possible, that time and the
wearisom repetition of the same embraces may
upon as handsom a provocation, tempt her to
change the Substance.

He that owns a Whore in a more peculiar
sense than a common Jakes, descends from the
dignity of Reason : And yet I have known some
so far transported as to marry such an one, to the
infamy of their Families, no less than their own
future discontent ; making a mercenary Woman
Arbitrator and Guardian of their Issue ; contrary
to the wiser practice of Spain^ where none are
admitted Judges of anothers Interest, that have
taken Fees as Pleaders themselves, lest former
Use should convert them into Bribes ; it being
hard to forego a profitable Custom, and as

impossible

74 ADVICE TO A SON

impossible to impropriate such Cattle as to mono-
polize the Air ; for the Bar of Honour being once
leaped over by that Sex, there remains nothing
certain to the owner, but the open Fields of
■^•lame and Repentance.

I. If tempted by an impatient Affection to
thing, not without danger or difficulty
ined, Catechize your self with this Question,
t Wish, Fortune or Labour presented you
, that after a full Fruition, did not soon
V tedious, or, at best came not far short of
t creaking expectation had undertaken it
lid perform ? And let this Contemplation
erate your desires. That all worldly Profit
Pleasure is correspondent to a like measure
inxiety and wearisomness ; therefore let no
artunity warp you contrary to right Reason
Convenience, ever arming your Constancy
nst Flattery and Impudence, strong Assailants,
cially marching under the Tears and Carresses
I handsom and seeming innocent Woman,
I whom it is no dishonour to fly, and with
m there is no safety to treat; for fear, like
i Satnson, you grind out the remainder of
days, between Want and Repentance, and
led in Triumph by her Friends, and those
imed to seduce you, more ready to sacrifice
thanks of their own Nets, than to the Easiness
our Nature, to which it is only due.

any then be furiously enamoured on you

se Fortune cannot correspond for the Troubles

lent to Marriage (which God knows are not a

few)

TRAVEL 75

few) venture the loss of her, rather than your
self; It being one of the highest pieces of Mad-
ness, to hang an indissolvable Padlock upon your
future hopes, only to save a Wenches Longing;
with whose soft humour miscarriage is more suit-
able, than a Man's armed with so much Advice :
Therefore fly from such as incurable Plagues,
nothing being more catching to unbiassed Nature,
than a seeming violent Affection ; which if not
built upon a former promise, you may leave her
justly to the melancholy Society of her own
folly ; out of which it is all odds but she may
happily recover, or imitate the voluptuous Death
of that Tailor reported to have whined away
himself for the Love of Queen Elieabeth.

22. Who Travels Italy^ handsom, young and
beardless, may need as much caution and circum-
spection, to protect him from the Lust of Men^ as
the Charms of Women: An Impiety not to be
credited by an honest Heart, did not the Ruins of
Sodomy calcin'd by this unnatural Heat, remain
still to witness it And as I have heard, they
continue so enamoured to this uncouched way of
Lust, (led by what imaginary delight I know not)
that such as Age and Weakness have set beyond
the Power of Acting, suffer themselves to be
Patients in that noisom Bestiality ; maintaining
to this End Emissaries abroad, to entice men of
delicate Complexions, to the Houses of these
decrepit Lechers ; under pretence of an Assigna-
tion made by some Feminine Beauty ; and thus
ensnared, the poor uncircumspect young Man

cannot

76 ADVICE TO A SON

cannot with Conscience do, or safely refuse this
base Office.

23. Where you never mean to return, extend
your Liberality at the first coming, as you see
convenient, during your aboads ; for what you
give at parting is quite lost

24. Make no Ostentation of carrying any con-
siderable Sum ol Mon^ about you; lest you turn that
to your Destruction, which under God is a Strangers
best Preservation : And Remove not fronn Place to
Place, but with Company you know : The not
observing whereof is the Cause so many of our
Countrymens Graves were never known ; having
been buried in as much Obscurity as kiU'd,

25. Inns are dangerous, and so are all fresh
Acquaintance, especially where you find their offer
of Friendship to out-bid a Strangers Desert :
The same may be said of Servants; not to be
entertained upon ordinary Commendations.

26. Next to Experience, Languages are the
Richest Lading of a Traveller ; among which
French is most useful, Italian and Spanish not
being so fruitful in Learning, (except for the
Mathematicks and Romances) their other Books
being gelt by the Fathers of the Inquisition.

27. He that is carried by his Curiosity under
the Jurisdiction of the Turk, or other Makutnetan
Princes, shall be used (as they esteem him) like a
Dc^ ; and so to be armed with a more invincible
Patience, than commonly accompanies a Man
free-bom ; insomuch as I heard a Kinsman say,
who had been at Jerusalem, That the richest

Experience

TRAVEL ^^

Experience he brought from thence, could not in
the least Proportion recompence the Trouble he
met with, bringing Home certain Marks of the
Incivility of the People, for an uncertain Dis-
covery of the Places fam'd for Christ s Death and
Burial : And tho' he thought he merited by it
(a Conceit I know uncapable of Place in your
Head) yet no Reward could hire him to repeat
again those weary Steps : Therefore I advise you
to believe rather what you may read in your
Study, than go thither to disprove it.

28. I can say little oi Plantations^ having had
no Experience of them : But that he, which
changeth his own Country, shall not, in my Mind,
do so well, to go farther from the Sun, or where
he may not at least share in the Government

IV. GOV

V. GOVERNMENT

not the common distemper, incident
Brains, who still imagine more ease

untried Government, than that they

not having passed the first Form of
, where we may leam, that Tyranny is
iral to power, than lust to Youth.
r for the present, 'tis no better than

endeavour a Change; if but indiffer-
toUy : For tho' a Vessel may yield the
Iting or stirring, it renders all in it
to the present use : The Die of War
ling to their advantage, that first cast
erefore as cannot make all well, dis-
Conscience in wishing it so ; Govem-
; the care of Providence, not mine.
>e your Fortune to fall under such
, imitate not the wild Irish or Welch
: Eclipses, run about beating kettles
blinking their clamour and vexations
* the assistance of the higher Orbs,
Ivance nothing but their own miseries,
maimed, but at best laied by, without
tward, so soon as the State is returned
ler splendor: Common Souldiers re-
sembling

GOVERNMENT 79

sembling Cocks, that fight for the benefit and
ambition of others, more than their own : This
proves it the wholsomer Counsel, to stay within
Doors, and avoid such malignant Affects, as
People attribute to the supposed Distempers of
the Superior Planets. But if forced to take a
Stream, lej it be that which leads to the Desires
of the Metropolis^ the chief City being for the
most part preserved, who ever Prevails, in a Civil
Commotion, abounding in Mony and Friends, the
readiest Commodities to purchase Quiet.

2. Be not the Pen or Mouth of a Multitude
congregated by the gingling of their Fetters ;
lest a Pardon or a Compliance knock them off,
and leave you, as the Soul of that Deformed
Body, hanging in the Hell of the Law, or to the
Vengeance of an exasperated Power ; but rather
have Patience, and see the Tree sufficiently
shaken, before you run to scramble for the
Fruit ; lest instead of Profit and Honour, you
meet with a Cudgel or a Stone ; and then (if
possible) seem to fall in, rather out of Com-
pulsion, than Design : Since the Zeal of the
Rabble is not so soon heated by the real Oppres-
sions of their Rulers, but may be easily cooled
by the Specious Promises and Breach of Author-
ity. Wherefore nurse not Ambition with your
own Bloody nor think the Wind of Honour strong
enough to blow away the reproachful Sense of a
shameful, if possibly that of a violent Death ;
for if Solomon's Rule be true, That a Living Dog
is better than a Dead Lion^ a quick Evasion

cannot

8o ADVICE TO A SON

cannot but be deemed more Man-like than a
buried Valour.

3. A Multitude inflamed under a Religious
retence are at first as unsafely opposed, as
lyned with ; resembling Bears exasperated by
le Cry of their Whelps, and do not seldom, if
nextinguished by Hope or Delays, consume all
ifore them, to the very thing they intend to pre-
;rve : Zeal, like the Rod of Moses, devouring all
ir Diabolical, that dares but appear before it in
le same Shape : The inconsiderate Rabble, with
le Swine in the. Gospel, being more furiously
Imitated by the discontented Spirits of others
lan their own ; who cannot be so happy in a Sea

: Blood and Devastation, the dire effects of War,
> In Peace, tho' invaded with some Oppression ; a
cab that breaks out oftentimes in the most
holsom constituted Bodies of States, and may
ith less smart be continued on, than picked off.
,nd because the generality are uncapable, in
gard of number, either of reward^or punishment,
lerefore not of use to the Ambition or Safety
r others, but for the present, like Gun-powder
jring the flash of their discontent, and as a
ock in a River, are only of force upon the first
lening to drive on the design of Innovation ;
sing themselves afterwards in a more universal
ilatation either out of weariness, or doubt of the
)nsequence.

4. The Example of Brutus, rather than Caio,
to be followed in iad times ; it being safer to

; patient, than active, or appear a Fool, than a
Malecontent :

GOVERNMENT 8i

Malecontent : An Evasion not only justified in
the Person of David, and by the Eloquence of
Paul before his Heathen Judges, but our Saviour
himself is not heard to inveigh against the pre-
sent PowcTy tho' it had made the Head of the
Baptist the Frolick to a Feast*

Own the Power ^ but not the Fault of the
Magistrate; nor make Law^ assigned for a
Buckler to defend yourself, a Sword to hurt
others ; lest Partiality should allure you to pass
the Sentence of Approbation upon any thing
unwarantable in its own Nature. Neither let any
Formalities used at a mimical Tribunal (as that
was, set up in the case of Naboth) perswade you
to more than a passive compliance : Since such
may seem to make greater, rather than diminish
the wages of their iniquity, that seek to cover
Rapine with a Gown ; which the Sword might
patronize with more decency : And this observed,
the People might cheaper receive all their In-
jury at the first hand, which these R^etailers of
wickedness utter at more intolerable rates : The
result of all is, Ahab might better have com-
mitted Murther single, than render so many Acces*
sary, under the formal pretence of a Religious
Fast, &c.

S. Before you fixy Consult all the Objections
Discretion is able to make ; but once resolved^
desert not your Party upon Access of a Fever^
as many melancholy Spirits did these Wars ;
who, by their often and unseasonable flittings,
wore themselves so out on both sides, as they

F were

82 ADVICE TO A SON

were not worth owning, when Success undertook
for them, that they did turn in earnest : Irreso-
lution rendring Pardon more difficult from either
Faction, than it could have proved, had they
remained constant to any : Divesting themselves
of the Ensigns bf Fidelity, looked upon by alt
the Eyes of pity, and do often meet with
ur, seldom fail of Foi^veness, from a Noble
ly, who cannot but befriend Virtue, tho' he
found it in Arms against him. Yet if you
ive the Post you have contracted, to totter,
gh undermining Treachery or weakness, you
purchase your preservation by all honest
,vours : For he that prolongs his Life by
brfeiture of a Trust he has undertaken,
ands it worse, than if he buried it in the
of Honour : Traitors in all Ages being
ly detested on both sides.
Submit quietly to any Power Providence
please to mount into the Saddle of Sove-
ty, without enquiring into their Right for
ience sake, or their Birth in relation of
lur; Remembering, that not only David,
he most famous for Success, did not only
iff other Lines, but were Natural Shepherds
the Cope of Heaven, before they attained
Metaphorically so under the Canopy of the
of State; which once possessed, clarifies
iresent Incumbent's Title from the greatest
tations incident to Birth or Proceeding,
the many-headed Beast, the Multitude, is
m more sometimes less gall'd and vexed by
the

GOVERNMENT 83

the nfew, than the old Saddle or Riders: Who,
out of their greatest Experience of her brutish
Patience are more apt to load her with the
Trappings of Power, and the Furniture suitable
to a Throne : whose Inventory Pride increaseth
proportionable to continuance, and the presump-
tion they have of their own Ability to keep the
People from attempting their Remove. This
may render it indifferent to a wise Man, what
Card is Trump ; whose Game may possibly prove
as fair under Clubs as Diamonds ; neither ought
he to be troubled whether his Fetters consist of
Many Links, or but One.

7. If Authority exacts an Acknowledgment
from you, give it with all readiness : It being the
highest Frenzy to dispute your Innocency with
those able to convert the greatest in a Fault :
For, if it be no dishonour to submit to Thieves
if fallen into their Hands, Let not the example
of a few Fools (who, like Lice, thrive nowhere so
well as in a Prison) tempt you to oppose your
Felicity against the Imperative Power, under
which the disposure of your Person doth wholly
remain, and therefore madness to deny it Words.

I abhor the Idolatry of the Heathen, yet can-
not but mind you of their Humility, in adoring
any thing the People set up, tho* but hewed out
of the Body of an Oak, most auspicious unto
Swine, and Principally after shaking by such
Storms as Devils are reported to have raised :
Therefore if you may enjoy the liberty of your
own Conscience and Estate, question not the

Desert

84 ADVICE TO A SON

Desert or Right of those, under whom you c
it.

8. He that suffers his Conscience to misle:
him in civil Obedience, makes his Guide a Stum
ling-block ; not considering that All Govemmer.
now extant had their foundations laid in the du
the' time may have dried it up by Oblivion,
flattering Historians licked it oif.

Think it no dispan^ment to your Birth
Discretion, to give Honour to fresh Families wl
cannot be denied to have ascended by the sari
steps, those did we stile Ancient; New being
Term only respecting Us, not the World ; F
what is, was before us, and will be when we a
no more : War follows Peace, and Peace War,
Summer doth Winter, and Foul Weather Fai
Neither are any Ground more in this Mill
Vicissitudes, than such obstinate Fools as glory
the Repute of State Martyrs after they are Deai
which concerns them less than what was said i(
Years before they were Bom ; It being the gre:
est odds, Their Names shall not be Registered,
if they be, after Death they are no more sensil
of the Honour, than Alexande/s great Horse,
any Beast else, his Masters Indulgence or t
Writers, are pleased to Record. Neither in
strict Sense, do they deserve such Honour, 1
being able to date their Possessions from befc
' the Conquest; Since if any be due, it who!
belongs to them that were Buried in the Ruins
their Countries Liberty, and not to such as helj
to make their Graves, as in all likelihood mi

GOVERNMENT 85

did whom the Normans suffered to remain.
Therefore it is madness to place our felicity out of
our own reach, or to measure Honour or Repute
by any other Standard than the Opinion we con-
ceive of it our selves : It being impossible to find
a general agreement in any good or evil Report ;
The Reign of Queen Elizabeth being no less
traduced, than that of Richard the Third is jus-
tified.

Be not therefore liquorish after FamCy found by
Experience to carry a Trumpet, that doth for the
most part congregate more Enemies than Friends.

If you duly consider the Inconstancy of Com-
mon Applause; and how many have had their
Fame broken upon the same Wheel that raised it,
and puffed out by their Breath that kindled the
first Report of it, you would be as little elevated
with the Smiles, as dejected by the Frowns of
this gawdy Goddess, formed like Venusy out of no
more solid Matter than the Foam of the People,
found by Experience to have Poysoned more than
ever she cured ; being so volatile, as she is unable
of Fixation in the richest Jewels of Nature,
Virtue or Grace ; The Composition of that Body
wholly consisting of Contradictions, no readier to
set up this Day, than she may be to pull down
the next : This renders it the lowest Puerility to
be pleased or angry at Reports: Good being
inflamed, and Evil quenched, by nothing sooner
than a constant Neglect.

9. Ostentation of Birthy at no time decent, can- ^
not in this be Safe, wherein the very Foundations

of

86 ADVICE TO A SON

of Honour are not only shaken but laid bare :
Besides, many are so abused in the Sound of their
own, or their Fathers Titles^ that by bustling for
the upper end, they often render that a Shame,
which in it self is no Crime : As for example. If
the Son of the Common-Hunt (in English^ the
Lord Mayors Dog-Keeper) by Reason of the
Title of Esquire annext to his Place, should con-
sider himself as a Man of Worship, &c. Were it
not Ridiculous ? When, God knows, the Appella-
tion is used for the Honour of the City, not the
Person that wears it. The same might be said of
all Mechanick Places at Court, which to render them
the more vendible, were Blazoned with the false
Alchimy of a like Title ; so far from advancing
Repute, that it sets it back in the Opinion of all
Judicious Men : Observe how ridiculous such
Animals are, to Pride themselves in the Shadow
and Tail of Honour, when the Substance is
vanished, and the Head — &c,

ID. Despise none for meanness of Bloody yet
do not ordinarily make them your Companions,
for debasing your own ; unless you find them
clarified by excellent Parts, or gilded by Fortune
or Power : Solomon having sent the Sluggard to
the Pismire to learn Industry, and to the Living
Dog rather than the Dead Lyon^ for Protection.

II. It cannot be looked upon as an Act of
prudence, to do more for another, than in Reason
may be expected from him again upon a like
occasion ; unless so far as I am obliged to it
out of Gratittide : And nd farther can my Prince

or

GOVERNMENT 87

or any one else expect assistance from me ; for
if I have not my Livelihood by him, I cannot
apprehend any cause why I should expose it for
him, especially if I may with any probability be
happy and keep it without him. And because
most of the first Proprietors of Government, in
our days, and long before, have ascended the
Throne at the Cost and Trouble, if not contrary
to the Mind of the People they Command, why
should any lose that for their Preservation, which
was never gained by their Benevolence ? There^
fore if those at the Helm have lost their Power,
and I not able to find a particular Engagement
or Interest strong enough to make their good
Success inseparably necessary to my present or
future well-being, I am not bound to go farther
on with them, than suits with my safety, and
the security my Judgement gives, that they are
able to bring me off: All we owe to Governors,
is Obedience, which depends wholly on Power,
and therefore subject to follow the same Fate and
perish with it : For, Friendship can be contracted
between none that stand so far remote from the
Line of Parity : Therefore all Superlative Powers
are excepted out of this Commerce, because
situated, in truth or pretence, under a Divine
Right, which no interest of mine can reach, much
less procure ; Then, being so far above us, they
can be nothing to us, longer than able to support
themselves; For if they have an extraordinary
and particular ^Establishment in Heaven, it were
Blasphemy to think they can be pulled down by

any

88 ADVICE TO A SON

any but God ; in the opposition of whose Ven-
geance I am no more able than willing to stand ;
as those must that appear unseasonably for them«
Besides, Powers are established to Protect us, who
are to live happy under them, not miserably for
them, if possibly to be prevented ; since all sorts
of Government may be reckoned among the rest
of Gods Plagues, poured down upon Men for
their oppression and disobedience, in the Primitive
Party ; which makes our Wills, like Eves^ subject
to others.

12. No Government can be s^iAy engaged^ hy
2l single Person, beyond Requital: Kings thinking
it a diminution of Honour, and Republicks a
dangerous step to Popularity : Here you may see
the continual use of Circumspection, since 'tis
possible for Virtue to form a Weapon against itself.

If it be dangerous to over-oblige a King, it is
mortal in relation to a Free-State ; whose In-
gratitude, no less than Requital, is divided among
so many, as they are scarce capable of Shame or
Thanks : Every Particular disavowing what is
generally thought amiss, and all Faults buried
in his Grave, that hath the Fortune to die next.
Therefore if possible, avoid Siding; yet if Com-
pelled, Remember it is deducible, both from the
History of the great Earl of Warwick and Stanly ^
That a King may be as safely destroyed as
preserved : And for Common-wealths, they are
in nothing more Perfect than Ingratitude : Either
Government finding it better Husbandry, to
Pardon Enemies, than to Reward Friends.

13- A

GOVERNMENT 89

13. A Reconciled Enemy is not safely to be
trusted; yet if any, a Great One : It being easier
for such to execute their Malice than conceal it.

Imagine few the more capable of Trusty be-
cause you had formerly obliged them ; nothing
being more ordinary than Natures that quit such
Scores with Hatred and Treachery : And if you
consider whose Hearts have been most empty of
Pity towards Unfortunate Princes^ Experience
may Present you with Millions of such whose
Hands formerly were filled with their Bounty,

Ignorance Reports of Witches, That they are
unable to hurt, till they have received an Alms ;
which tho' ridiculous in it self, yet in this Sense
verified ; That Charity seldom goes to the Gate^ but
it meets with Ingratitude: They proving for the
most part the greatest Enemies, that have been
bought at the dearest Rates of Friendship ; which
proceeds from the high Pride of Humanity:
Therefore be as little flattered to do Good out of
Hope of Requital, as I would have you terrified
out of Fear of the contrary.

14. Grant, if ever, a Courtesie at first asking ;
for as Expedition doubles a Benefit, so delay
converts it into little less than an Injury, and robs
you of the Thanks, the Fate of churlish Natures ;
whereas some, I have known able to apparel their
Refusals in such soft Robes of Courtship, that it
was not easie to be discerned, whether the Re-
quest or Denial were most decent

Do not hackney out your Promise to the full
Stage of Desire ; lest tiring in Performance and

becoming

90 ADVICE TO A SON

becoming a Bankrupt in Power, you forfeit Re-
pute, and purchase certain Enemies for uncertain
Friends. Yet when the Suffrages of many, in
relation to your particular Profit are to be pur-
chased, wise Mens Practice hath proved it no
indiscretion to be lavish in this kind ; where the
Dishonour of non-performance with others is
quite buried in the greater Benefit accruing to
your self; it being as ordinary for Hope to ex-
ceed Modesty in asking, as an engaged Power
comes short of the Ability, if not the Will to
perform : Therefore in this Case you must supply
with Thanks, what you are not able to do in
Effect

15. Be not nice in Assisting^ with the Advan-
tages, Nature or Art may have given you, such as
want them ; who do not seldom in Exchange,
part with those of Fortune, to such as can manage
their Advice well ; as they only do, that never give
Counsel till called; nor continue it longer than they
find it acceptable.

If one in Power ask your Advice in a business
of Consequence, it may appear Rashness, if not
Folly, to answer suddenly upon the Place ; it not
being impossible, but that the design of his Ques^
tion may as well be to try your sufficiency, as to
strengthen his own: However so much time as
may be borrowed with safety from the emergency
of any occasion, is likelier to encrease than abate
the weight of a Result : And in this interim you
may gain leisure to discover, what Resolution
suits best the Mind of the Party, who is com*

monly

GOVERNMENT 91

monly gratified most by such as comply nearest
with his own Judgment ; which 'tis ever Wisdom
to observe, where all the Counsels given are in-
different. Nor will it savour of so much respect
to his Person, or Care of his Affairs, to determine
extempore^ as upon Premeditation; it being the
Custom of great ones to value things ^ not proportion-
able to their worth, but the Sweat and Time they
cost

16. Tis not dutiful nor safe to drive your
Prince y by a witty Answer, beyond all possibility of
Reply; it being more excusable to appear Rich,
than Wise at the prejudice of one in Superlative
Power ; who have their Ears so continually soft-
ened by Flattery, as they easilier bear diminution
in their Treasure, which they look upon as below
and without them, than in Wit^ Handsomeness,
Horsmanshipj &c. which their Parasites have long
made them believe are inherent in them. This a
Carver at Court, formerly in good esteem with
King fames, found to his prejudice, who being
laughed at by him, for saying. The Wing of a
Rabbit, maintained it as congruous as the Fore-
Leg of a Capon, a Phrase used in Scotland, and
by himself here ; which put the King so out of
Patience, as he never looked on the Gentleman
more. The like I have been told of a Bishop,
who being reproved by the same Prince for
Preaching against the Papists during the Treaty
with Spain, replied. He could never say more than
His Majesty had Writ Go thy way, quoth the
King, and expect thy next Translation in Heaven,

not

92 ADVICE TO A SON

not from Me ; meaning, he would never better
his See. This Humour makes the Terrestrial
Gods more auspicious to Fools, than those, Solo-
mon saith, are able to render a Reason,

17. It is not safe for a Secretary to mend the
Copy his Master hath set him, unless owned as
from his former Inspirations, lest he should grow
jealous that you valued your Conceptions before
his ; who measures his Sufficiency by the Latitude
of his Employment, not the depth of his Natural
Parts. This made the Lord Chancellor Egerton
the willinger to exchange incomparable Doctor D.
for the less sufficient, tho' in this more modest,
Mr. T. B.

But in case his Affairs be wholly left to your
management, you must not only look to corre-
spond for his Miscarriages, but as obstinately re-
nounce any Honour that may be given you, to his
Prejudice : Imputing all to his single Sufficiency,
your self owning no higher place than that of the
Executioner of his Commands, For tho* many
great Men, like Properties or Puppets, are managed
by their Servants \ yet slich are most dear to
them, as can so carry their hand in their actings,
that they make them appear less Fools, than in
truth they are ; easily done, by giving them the
Honour to concede or deny in Publick^ without
interposing any other Arguments against it than
may become the Mouth of a Servant, however
you may order him in Private,

1 8. Write not the Faults of Persons near the
Throne, in any Nation you reside in, lest your

Letters

GOVERNMENT 93

Letters should be intercepted, and you sent out of
the World before your time ; but reserve such
Discourse for the single Ear of your Master, into
which you must pour it with more Caution than
Malice, lest it should come to be discovered, as it
is odds but it will ; and then the next endeavour
is Revenge ; it being less danger to traduce a King
than his Minions, The first still looked upon as
above blame, because uncapable of Punishment ;
but the latter are not only Subject to Accusations,
but the aggravations of their Enemies ; which
fills them full of Caution and Prejudice to all they
fear are able, or but willing to detect them. I
could produce sad Effects that have followed the
want of Care in this, but that I intend Advice,
not an History.

It is an Office unbecoming a Gentleman to be
an Intelligencer y which in real truth is no better
than a Spy (who are often brought to the Torture,
and Die miserably, tho' no words are made of it,
being a use connived at by all Princes :) To
whom I give this Caution, that they stay not
after their Patrons are called Home, which do
not seldom (in emulation to their Successor, or
to gratifie the Prince they have treated withal,
and it may be, from whom they have received
Presents and high Commendations to their own
King) discover all that are employed to do him
hurt.

Many, by woful experience, have tasted the
bitter Consequence of delivering their single Judg-
ment of Men in Power^ or revealing their Mis-

carriages

94 ADVICE TO A SON

carriages, when able to produce no strange;
than their own; for such do not rarely,
forgetfulness, or some other more Politic!
add to the Information; and so make ;
the opinion of others, to Recant, or jus
Lye. For if it be a Prince who Repeat
Report, you cannot with safety or manne
to the Dignity of his Person, interrupt h
in the conclusion, rectifie his Relation w
stout a Forehead, as an Innocent Heart
but own. Therefore wait in such Cases of i
you must, till some opportunity produi
Medium strong enough to satisfie him to
you make the Relation, and screen your sel
all imputation of Falshood, For want of
Caution, I have known many Ground to
between the weight of their own credit, ai
parties accused.

It is always slippery about the Throne, bu
dangerous, where a Prince, out of distrust
own abilities, or attention to the Voice of PI
leaves his Affairs wholly to the Conduct
Favourite; for there to opine contrary
Gusto of such a Subject, how necessary o
dent soever your Advice is, will be looke(
as given out of Design, if not in Opposition
Greatness. By this I have known many fa
the displeasure of the Sovereign, whose E;
more open to the Complaints of his Miniot
the juster Defences of a more faithful Se
which can never come to be heard, there be
access to him, but only through the Media

GOVERNMENT 95

the Party you have Offended. Wherefore in such
Governments there can be no security, but by
proposing what Conveniency and Reason dictates
by way of Problem. And if generally received,
it may pass under the Advice of otfiers^ the con-
trary to the hair of the greatest Counseller, who
in this Case knows not against whom to plant his
Revenge ; a Number being no less uncapable of
Fear than Reproof. But if you find any thing
rejected, or but questioned by your Master upon
premeditation, you may be sure the hand oi Joab
is in it, and so not to be prosecuted farther with-
out running the hazard of your Ruin.

19. That it is not unlawful to Serve, or bear
Office or Arms under such as Ascend the Throne,
or other High Places by Steps washed in Blood,
you may be abundantly satisfied in Conscience,
by the Church in Nero'j House, the good Centu*
riofij and many others mentioned in Scripture.

20. Court him always you hope one day to
make use of, but at the least Expence you can ;
observing the condition of Men in Power, to esteem
better of such as they have done Courtesies for, than
those they have received greater from; looking
upon this as a Shame, upon the other as an
Honour.

21. Tis a Natural guard, and within the
management of the most ordinary Capacities,
to keep an Enemy out at the Staves end ; but
suitable only to a Superlative Prudence, so wisely
to Govern your Words and Actions towards a
Friend, as may Preserve your self from Danger;

not

L/

96 ADVICE TO A SON

not to be done but by communicating to him
no more than Discretion or Necessity shall
warrant you to Reveal ; since Men, in this
Relation, destroy as many out of Folly as Per-
fidiousness ; Wisdom being a rarer Ingredient
in Friendship than Honesty. This makes me
think the Friend Seneca brags of, was only an
Utopian: and therefore I shall pass it by as a
Romantick Strain, being rather a Sally of his
Wit, than a real Charge issuing out of the Body
of his Judgment. The highest Love I dare give
credit to, is that of Jonathan^ yet granting he
looked upon the Words of Samuel as Oracles^
no other probable way appeared to preserve
his Family^ than by helping David to promote
that he was thoroughly perswaded he could not
hinder. This put into the Balance with the
Frailty^ no less than the Rarity of such Persons,
makes me advise you not to weigh that was, may
be, and perhaps is ; but how many more have
been betrayed and undone, under the specious
pretext of Friendship ? wherefore not to be
trusted farther than the line of a reciprocal
Interest doth extend ; no former Merit being
now able to give Caution for a future Trust,
because depending upon the acceptance of the
Receiver, not the value the Giver rates it at. To
Conclude, Tho* I think this a necessary Caution,
in this perfidious Generation, yet I hope you will
be so far tender of your own Honour, as not
wilfully to violate so sacred a Bond^ never Broken
or thought out of Fashion, but by base Hands

and

GOVERNMENT 97

and corrupted Minds : Desertion of Friends being
none of the smallest Signs portending the destruc-
tion of a People ; for such as out of a pretence of
Lovey betray others, will not spare their King^
Country y or God,

22. Mingle not youc Interest with a Great
Matis^ made desperate by Debts or Court In-
juries, whose breakings out prove fatal to their
wisest Followers and Friends; averred in the
last Earl of Essex but one, where Merrick his
Steward, and Cuffe his Secretary, tho' of excellent
Parts, were both Hanged. For such unconcocted
Rebellions turn seldom to the hurt of any but the
Parties that promote them ; being commonly
guided by the directions of their Enemies, as this
was by Cecily whose Creatures perswaded Essex to
this inconsiderate attempt.

23. Let nothing unjustifiable or dangerous
appear under your Handy which many Years
after, may rise up in Judgment against you, when
things spoken may be forgot ; as happened to the
Duke of Norfolk^ Sir Gervase Elvis^ and a great
Earl I knew led by the Nose all King James his
Reign, for fear of being questioned about Letters
writ to so high a Person as Is Treason by the
Law, to Solicite, &c. Therefore I charge you,
as you tender the Blessing of your own Safety,
not to Write in an ill Sense^ whatever your
Character be : For, if not tedious Examina-
tion, sharp Torture will force you to produce a
Key.

24. Avoid the Folly of Acteon, that lost the

G shape

98 ADVICE TO A SON

shape of a Courtier^ by prying into their Secrets^
Religion taught him to Worship : An Humour
Sir Edw, Coke might have paid dearer for, had he
Published the Contents of the Earl of Somersets
Letters in a less Merciful King's Reign than
James'Sf of whose Pardon the foulest Faults
tasted, yet became so highly irritated by this
proud Lawyer's indiscretion, as to remove his
Anger from the Prisoner to the Jtidgey where
it rested till Death; who, by the Riches and
Honours he poured upon such Heads as his
Youth found in Arms against him in Scotland^
and in Juncto's in England^ hath made it mani-
fest, That a Prince is easier Reconciled to an
Enemy, who hath caused him to tremble, than
a Subject that hath daily in his Power the means
to make him blush. Therefore if you attain any
such knowledge, dissemble it, or put the best
exposition upon it.

25. Providence or a severer Destiny hath
Housed under all Roofs a sufficient proportion
of Calamities : Therefore 'tis folly to send to
Market for troubles, as those that do contract
Foreign Infelicities^ vexing themselves for the
Losses of the Prince of Conde in France^ the
Death of the King of Sweden in Germany^ or
the Progress of the Turks in Candy^ &c. Tophet
is prepared of old, as well to Torment the
Ambitious and Unquiet Spirits of busie Subjects
as Kings.

26. Afflict not your self to see the Reward of
Wisdom distributed among Fools; for those the

Fathers

•

GOVERNMENT 99

Fathers stone and excruciate by neglect, as the
Jews did the Prophets. Their Sons may raise
Monuments, and curse their Ancestors, that out
of fear to detect their own Ignorance, barred
the Gates of Preferment against all more able
than themselves to have Paved a Way to future
Felicity: It being the ordinary Mode, if not
Policy of the World, to keep Folly at the Helm^
and Wit under Hatches.

27. One may attain to a higher degree of
Honour and Power under a Monarchy than can
be found room for in the Republick ; as is ap-
parent in some Favourites that have had the
Administration of all Affairs. Yet in my opinion
this is abundantly recompensed in the multitude,
which the latter employs, who are securer in what
they enjoy, in not being subject to the Passions
of a single Judgment.

Republicks lie most obnoxious to popular Com-
motions^ Monarchies to clandestine Attempts ; in
the first it is not safe to be found, unless they be
so Epidemical as may more than probably assure
Success ; in the latter, not decent for a Person of
Honour, tho* warranted by never so much Security;
no Hands being more loathsom than those that
smell of Blood and Treachery.

28. Tho' Law Perish (a thing unlikely, being
the Guard of all Peace) yet Oratory will still keep
in repute, as having more Affections to work
upon in a Republick than a Monarchy^ one Judg-
ment being easier forestalled than many ; so that
I may safely presage, if a Golden Tongue fall.

uncteii

i

lOo ADVICE TO A SON

under a Subtile Head, it may have a great in-
fluence upon the whole Senate.

29. Tho' I hope I have now reason to be Con-
fident you will accomplish the presage, divers
long since made of your future sufficiency; yet I
should advise not to extend it to any publick
demonstration, beyond the Limits of your own
Profession; since the Study of the Law being
esteemed by all a full Employment for a whole
Man, if you should make a considerable digres-
sion into another Calling, it might occasion a
jealousie in your Clients^ you had neglected your
own. The several Books, incomparable Bacon
was known to Read, besides those relating to the
LaWy were objected to him, as an Argument of
his insufficiency to manage the Place of Solicitor
General^ and may lie as a rub in all their ways,
that shall out of vain-glory, to manifest a general
knowledge, neglect this Caution.

30. Avoid in your Pleadings such unnecessary
Digressions as some of the Long Robe do ordin-
arily make, from the Merit of the Cause, to the
Defamation of the contrary Party : A Quicksand
wherein Coke that Leviathan of the Law^ mired
his Repute. Nor could he divest this vanity
after he was made a Judge ; from which height
it cast him to the hazard of his Neck, had not
the soft Nature of King James broke his fall.
Nor doth the antiquity of it plead a better
excuse, than that he retained the effeminate and
weaker Part, leaving the Roman Elegancy unimi-
tated.

31. At

GOVERNMENT lOi

31. At a Conference^ to speak last is no small
advantage ; as Mr. John Hambden wisely observed,
who made himself still the Goal-keeper of his
Psuty, giving his opposites leisure to lose their
Reasons in the loud and less significant Tempest,
commonly arising upon a first Debate ; in which,
if he found his side worsted, he had the dexterous
Sagacity to mount the Argument above the
Heads of the major part : Whose single Reason
did not seldom make the whole Parliament so far
suspicious of their own, as to approve his, or at
least give time for another Debate, by which he
had the opportunity to muster up more forces ;
thus by confounding the weaker, and tiring out
the acuter Judgments, he seldom failed to attain
his ends.

32. If you be to vote in any Publick Assembly y
avoid, as much as you may, giving concession
under your Hand to any private Man's written
Opinions : For you cannot, without experiment,
believe how much your own judgment will be
altered, and how crude your former Reasons will
appear to your self, after they are ruminated and
digested by Debate.

Having since these Wars been admitted to
Councils^ where many of no great Capacity have
assisted, I never knew any thing come so exactly
framed out of one Man's Sense, that did not
receive a palpable amendment from the Debates
of sometimes much inferior Judgments : Nay I
have known some that have had the fortune to
start the Idea^ which when it hath been presented

to

I02 ADVICE TO A SON

to them again in a perfect Result^ have not been
able to see the bottom of the Wisdom of it, with-
out much difficulty and admiration : Neither is
this Miraculous, but Natural ; for the Fuller^ Dier^
Weavety &c. understand not each others Trades,
yet between them all a good Piece of Cloth is
made.

33. As excellent Painters were not wont to
fix upon a single Beauty, but did borrow an Eye
of this and a Lip^ Nose^ &c, from others, out of
which was formmed an exquisite Venus ; so shall
you do well to propose more than one for imitation^
the only way to render you compleat : Since a
Man absolute in all points hath not yet risen
within the Circle of the largest Experience.
Which renders them obnoxious to Censure, rather
than Commendations, before Death hath deprived
them of the Sense of either : Envy that feeds
only upon Infirmities, receiving a more favourable
Audience from the generality than the loudest
desert ; the progress of whose detraction doth
commonly terminate at the Grave ; after which
she is as intemperate in their praise by way of
comparison with those alive, as she was malicious
to them at their being here ; where none are so
exact, no not in that very Profession, which they
have made it the Study of their Lives to be per-
fect in, but that in some things they lie open to
reproof, as I could instance in that course you
have chosen, where many taken for Tutors, would
not have been thought worth the following were
they now in being (as their Contemporaries know)

who

GOVERNMENT 103

who had the true smack of the Pottage before the
Coloquintida was corrected by the Earthy the
Womb of Forgetfulness, some wanting Elocutiotty
others Confidence^ and many owners of these,
Moderation: It lying in the Power of a foolish
Custom or Gesture to render the most able,
ridiculous ; Mens Eyes no less than their Judg-
ments being blind towards themselves : For tho'
the Client loves him that speaks much and loud,
the Court favours those are modest and pertinent
This I tell you, that you should not take all for
current Gold you see Glittering in Opinion, nor
all for Dross and Counterfeit, which hath not had
the Fortune to receive the Impress of her appro-
bation.

34. Before I came to have leisure to observe
them, I thought Princes and Ministers of State
something above Humane ; not hearing a word
fall from them, upon which I did not put a
Politick Construction : But growing more familiar
with them, I found their Discourses mingled with
the same Follies^ ours are ; and their Domestical
affairs carried on with as little, if not less discre-
tion sometimes than ordinary Mens.

35. He that seeks Perfection on Earth, leaves
nothing new for the Saints to find in Heaven :
For whilest Men teach, there will be mistakes in
Divinity ; and as long as no other Govern, Errors
in the State: Therefore be not licorish after
Change^ lest you muddy your present felicity
with a future greater, and more sharp inconve-
nience.

36. Those

I04

ADVICE TO A SON

36. Those that impute their good success to
ChancCy or rather Providence (unto which none
can be too liberal, since every thing Proceeds
from it) rebate the point of Envy far more than
such as father them upon their own Wisdom or
Valour f in which many pretend an ample share,
that may easily be brought to confess themselves
exceeded in Luck, And most Men are willing
to imploy or follow his Conduct that lies under
the high esteem of a Favourite to Fortune : Who
are ever acceptable in the Courts of Princes,
because they create more hope than jealousie ; All
being apter to Reverence and Love, than Malign
such as they think operate under the favourable
Aspect of the Omnipotent God: Which opinion
attained, it breeds no less Confidence in Friends
than it strikes Terrour into Enemies.

37. As I would have you primarily intend stop-
ping of the Leaks in your own Bottom, if called to
the Helm (from which in Free States none are
exempt) so you must by no mens neglect the
repairing the broken fortunes of others found to
be oi excellent parts, who if not made Friends by
Preferment, may prove dangerous to a New-
founded State : Neither are Preferments so scarce,
or these so numerous, but that there is provision
enough for them in these three Nations : I confess
Queen Elizabeth most happy in this, which pre-
served her from Civil Wars ; whose Foundations
are commonly laid by Artificers too subtile to be
discovered ; Flames, as in Hay or Straw, may be
kindled in the more combustible People, by such

Foxes

GOVERNMENT 105

Foxes as shall appear rather to carry Water, than
Fire-Brands ; Nothing in Experience being found
more mortal than an unseasonable Commendation
from an eloquent Tongue or a forced complyance
from a discontented Politician. The Consistory
^xA Jesuits maintain throughout the World the
Traffique of Sedition and privy Conspiracy, yet
have had so much Wit, as to land it in Presbyte-
rians bottoms, and to cover their Disobedience to
Governors under the attempts of the Anabaptists^
that naturally acknowledge none. The Truth is,
if wise Men will make it their business, they may
be easily able, where the People are unsettled, to
obstruct all good, and promote much evil, under
the specious pretences of Religion and Safety:
Therefore far cheaper pleased than discontented ;
being otherwise in true Policy capable of no
slighter security than shall be able to cut off all
hope or desire of future Revenge : The conside-
ration of which, tho' it cannot make me altogether
approve, yet it abates my severity in the Condem-
nation of that Legislator, said to have Writ his
Laws in Blood, which might be more suitable to
the Complexion of some Times, than may possibly
hitherto have been thought,

38. The like may be imagined of Men pro-
scribed^ who between thirst of Revenge, and a
desire of Returning, do not seldom promote their
Countries Ruin. This also may Authorize their
Tenets, that hold Punishing Children with the loss
of Goods for their Fathers Crimes^ as dangerous
as unjust. And under this Head may be reduced

all

106 ADVICE TO A SON

all Penal Laws, laid upon Faults not really preju-
dicial to the State : Nor can a too rigid scrutiny,
either after personal lapses in Manners, or uncouth
Tenets in Religion, produce any good Effects to a
[[Commonwealth where no Inquisition is, which
jnder the Papacy draws the envy wholly upon
;he Church, made incapable not only by Custom,
Ijut by an awful Reverence of all Revenge.

39. Another Error may happen (especially
where a Free State is founded in Arms) by con-
ceding too great a Power to ihe Souldiery ; who
like the Spirits of Conjurers, do oftentimes tear
their Masters and Raisers in Pieces for want of
other Employment. Therefore since it is beyond
the plenty of any Nation to proportion a Reward
suitable to the opinion they have of their own
Merit, it behoves the Supream Power to bury
their Covetousness and Ambition in the fields of
others by a Foreign War, yet as little to their
discontent as may be ; always giving them the
Honour of good Servants, though bad Masters ;
Remembring that the Cause you raised them for,
is not so deep buried, but it may rise again to the
Terror of all that withstand it.

40. Neither can the Clergy be rendered with
less danger, Despicable than Great ; both these
Extreams equally crossing the ways of Peace ;
yet more Safety possibly may accrue from estating
them in so comfortable a competency, as the losing
of it may Create fear, than such a Power as they
have in other Nations, found by experience to
produce Pride and Ambition, besides an encroach-
ment

GOVERNMENT 107

ment on the Peoples Liberty, whose Natures they
are used to warp towards any side, by the Hope
and Terror they raise in Consciences in relation to
another World ; the exploding of which Belief
would be no less dim'unition to the Reverence of
the Civil Magistrate, than the Profit of the Priest-
hood.

V. RELIGION

V. RELIGION

I . READ the Book of God with Reverence, and
in things doubtful take Fixation from the Autho-
rity of the Churchy which cannot be Arraigned of
a damnable Error, without questioning that Truth,
which hath proclaimed her proof against the Gates
of Hell, This makes me wish that our Samsons
in Success^ who have stript her of her Ornaments
(Riches, Powers and Honours, which the Ancient
Piety left her to cover her Nakedness withal) and
given them to vain Expounders of Riddles, may
not one day have cause to Repent, when they find
themselves annoyed, no less than the Eyes of
Truth put out by the dust and rubbish the fall of
so great and antique a Frame is likely to make.
Therefore be content to see your judgment Wade,
rather than Swim in the sense of the Scriptures ;
because our deep Plungers have been observed to
bring up sandy Assertions, and their Heads wrapt
about with the venemous Weeds of Error and
Schism ; which may for the present discounte-
nance the Endeavours of modester Learning, yet
will, no doubt, sink and vanish, after some Time
and Experience had of their frequent Mistakes, as

those

RELIGION 109

those of our bold Expositors of the Revelations
have most shamefully done.

For if Brightman^ known by my self Pious and
Learned, could be so out in his Calculations for
the Pope's Fall, as to the time : What encourage-
ment remains for you to perplex your Studies or
expectation, when those Hieroglyphical Obscurities
shall be performed ?

2. The prudent Consistory finding the less
zealous, yet more prying Judgments of these Times
too full of Caution, Suspicion, &c. to credit new
Miracles, have forbidden the predication of more,
without Licence from those who are too cautelous
for the passing of any, not at least in semblance,
proof against Detection ; leaving them for the rest
to the large stock Time and Custom (the Vouchers
of many a Lie) have conveyed to them from their
Ancestors better cultivated Ignorance and Credu-
lity ; which may with far greater Reason advise
us to a more tender and honourable esteem of the
Sacred Books of the Prophet Daniel and the Apo-
calypse^ than to suffer them still, like Wkittington's
Bells, to Ring the Advancement or Knell of those
at the Helm. Comines having noted it as a
Blemish of England, to measure their Hopes and
Fears by Fanatick presages ; the consequence of
which is in the future, likely to prove as fatal to
the Lay-Power, as they have formerly been to the
Ecclesiastical ; so as our Grovemors, if they tender
Religion or their own Safety, must hang the Lock
of Restraint against these bold Interpretations;
since the Seal those Books retain, strengthened

with

no ADVICE TO A SON

with the dreadful Comminations of the Holy Spirit,
are not sufficient to stay the' Ages Presumption ;
who from among these Hieroglyphicks pick out
such Cognizances as best suit their Designs, not so
easily brought about, as by a miss led Zeal in the
Rabble ; and after they have fixed them on those
that stand in the way of their Advancement, they,
like Diana^ set their own People upon them. Nor
can a Restriction put upon our Peepers into such
Mysteries, be any more obstruction to the Divine
Truths they contain (not legible by any light the
knowledge of Men hath hitherto attained) than it
was Sloth or Sin in the Egyptians, not to follow
their Callings till the three days darkness was
over, or their Abstinence from Water a contempt
of God's Blessing, after it was by Moses converted
into Blood, and become the Sanctuary for venomous
Frogs. This makes me think a Prosecution of the
Oriental Tongues (beyond an ability to understand
them) is like Musick or Fencing, unable to requite
the Time they consume ; Hebrew being observed
to grow for the most part in Soils apter to
produce Roots than Flowers, yet so luxurious in
the variety of Readings and Significations, as it
amazeth the Wise, and precipitates the Ignorant
and Factious into no less deep and destructive
Enthusiasms.

3. He may be less Prudent, if not Religious,
who strains at a gnat, contrary to the Stomach of
the Church he lives in, than such as swallow greater
things owned by her Universal Consent: For he
that herds with the Congregation, tho' in an Error,

hath

RELIGION III

hath Obedience to stand by him ; whereas a Truth
in the other, may be rendred more Peccant through
a solitary obstinacy ; since it is ordinary with the
Holy Spirit to Register such things for good, as
had not quite expunged all Marks of Idolatry,
tho' possibly in their Power to have done it, which
a private Person cannot but want, having nothing
but Arguments to oppose, blunted through Preju-
dice arising from a contrary Practice.

4. Despise not ^Profession of Holiness ^ because
it may be true ; but have a care how you trust it,
for fear it should be false : The Coat of Christ
being more in Fashion than \nYx^z\AC^yMany PulpiU
Men, like Physicians^ forbidding tlteir Patients that^
you may ordinarily find on their own Trenchers.

5. Hypocrisicy tho' looked upon by the Church,
(the Spouse of Christ) as a gaudy and painted
Adulteress, yet if she passeth undiscovered, the
result is not so dangerous as that of open Pro-
phaneness : Therefore shun all occasions of Scandal^
which commonly arise from Drink^ whose Followers
have their Lapses scored on every wall.

6. Critidsms and curious Questions in School
Divinity f may whet the Wit, but are detected for
dulling the edge of Faith, and were never Famous '
for Edification ; and tho' looked upon in these last ,
Centuries, as the Right Hand of Learning, yet
better cut off than used as they have long served,
for Weapons of Contention ; devised to puzzle the
Laity^ and render the Clergy no less Necessary
than Honourable; who have Work enough cut
out for them till Dooms-day, to resolve which is

least

i

112

ADVICE TO A SON

least suitable to the Divine Essence, to have Bound
the Hands of Men, or left them at Liberty. By
this a constraint must needs be put upon us, or our
Maker, &c. Which considered, renders it the more
strange why School- Men pass for Saints, and
Arminians in some Judgments for, &c,

7. I can approve of none for Magisterial Divinity^
but that which is found floating in the unques-
tioned Sense of the Scriptures ; therefore when
cast upon a Place that seems equally inclined to
different Opinions, I would advise to count it as
Bowlers do, for dead to the present Understanding,
and not to torture the Text by measuring every
Nicety, but rather turn to one more Plain, referring
to that all disputes ; without knocking one hard
place against another, as they have done since this
Iron Age, till an unquenchable Fire of Contention
is kindled, and so many jarring and uncertain
sounds of Religion heard, as Men stand amaz'd,
not knowing which to follow, all pretending to be
in the right, as if it were possible for Truth to
contradict her self.

8. I grant the Socinians are not at this time
unworthily looked upon, as the most Chymical
and Rational part of our many Divisions ; yet
going contrary to the ancient Canons of the Church
(esteemed in the School of the Fathers, the best
Grammar of a Christian's Creed) and wanting the
principal Buttresses of Prescription, Universality
and Consent, to uphold the Convenience, and
justifie the truth of their Doctrine, I cannot award
them so much approbation as they seem in Reason

to

RELIGION 113

to plead for ; yet are so far confident, that if just
proof can be made of their adulterating the Faith
of Antiquity, few Professions extant can justly
take up tl^ first Stone against them ; who upon a
Consciencious scrutiny, may possibly appear equally
culpable: However, such as call them ArianSy do
not think they Honour them with a former uni-
versal Consent, Athanasius only excepted : And
other less probable Opinions may learn this Candor
and Charity from them, nor to Bar Heavens Gates
against all Professions but their own ; or, like our
Retailers of New Lights, pull Passengers into their
Preaching-Houses by the Sleeves, as if all wanted
Religion but themselves.

9. And as the Sodnian Doctrine appears too
Airy, High and Mercurial for ordinary Capacities^
whose understandings are usually consumed, like
Jupitef's Mistress, in the splendid Commerce of
such sublime Speculations ; so the Roman is too
Earthy and Saturnine, participating of the Dross
of Merit, Images, Indulgences, &c. Which con-
vinceth Her of so much worldy Respect as she
stands condemned by all, but such as are betrayed
to her Devotion through Ignorance, Profit, or
Honour, on the one hand, or chained to her Obe-
dience by the Iron Inquisition on the other.

ID. Yet were not Purgatory^ with the rest of
the Romish Goblins, obtruded as Articles of Faith,
I should be less scandalized at them ; in hope by
accident they might occasion good ; finding humane
Nature so Childish, as to be sooner scared, than
perswaded out of the dark Entries of Sin ; the

H real

114 ADVICE TO A SON

real Rod not being so terrible in the hand of the
Magistrate, as these Phantasms, which Tradition
and the Priests subtilty hath formed in the Peoples
Brains.

1 1 . But in conclusion, you will find the Refor-
mation most conformable to the Duty we owe to
God, and the Magistrate ; if not too Phlegmatick
in passing by decent Ceremonies, or too Cholerick
and Rigid in obtruding upon weak and tender
Consciences.

12. And yet it was no unhappy rencounter in
him that said, A good Religion might be Composed
4nit of the Papists Charity, the Puritans Words,
^nd the Protestants Faith : For where Works are
thought too chargeable, outward Profession too
cumbersom, the Third renders it self suspected :
The two first being only palpable to Sense and
Reason, stand firm like a Rock ; whereas the
other shakes under the weight of every Phancy, as
Peter d\idi when he walked upon the Sea : To speak
Englishy In Good Works none can be deceived
but the Doer, in valuing them too high ; in the
two latter, all but God, who only knows the
Heart

13. I confess the Millenaries are of so jovial a
Creed, as I could be content it stood with the will
of God, I might herd with them ; who, if not
approved, I do not find condemned by any Council,
at least for the first 300 Years.

14. But for the Vagabond Schismatick^ he is so
fiery, as he cannot last long unconsumed, being
ready upon the least advantage to melt all into

Sedition ;

RELIGION 115

Sedition ; not sparing to burn the Fingers of
Government longer than they shower down Offices
and Preferments upon him ; whining for a Sanctity
here, God never yet trusted out of Heaven :
Therefore uncapable of quiet, but under a severe
Restraint, or an absolute Liberty.

15. And our new Levelling Opinions^ tho' they
seem to Transcribe their Authority, from the no
less inimitable than miraculous Practice of the
Primitive times, stand (if taken at the farthest
extent) in so diametrical an Opposition to all
humane felicity, as not likely to proceed from the
Lord of Order: Being, if Lights, in such dark
Lanthoms, as rob humane Society of all Reward,
and consequently, endeavour of desert: Yet the
Owners tho' unconstant in their new ways, pro-
nounce it Damnable to keep the old.

16. It is observable in the present humour, that
those who carry an impress of the wildest Errors^
have a safer pass-port to Travel by, and a nearer
step to Preferment than such as retain the Tenets
our Fathers kept in gross during the Flames of
the ancient Persecutions, and by retail under the
Modem : Making the Honour of that Doctrine
scandalous, for which our Ancestors were not
ashamed to Die ; who are by this rendered the
worst of Murderers, as having through obstinacy,
been guilty of their own Death.

17. Will not such proceedings incline to
Anarchy? And that proving loathsom to all,
make room for the old or some more acceptable
Family, if not for Conquest by a Foreign Nation ?

because

t.

ii6 ADVICE TO A SON

because People lying uneasily, are apt to such
Tumblings and Changes, as cannot but at last
bring them under a Power, strong enough to con-
strain, or cunning enough to perswade them, with
a pretence of Holiness and Righteousness, to a
mutual Compliance, in relation to a Change of
Government. Of the first three are multitudes of
examples throughout all Prophane Histories ; of
the latter few but Sacred, where the Jews under
Moses being led by the miraculous Hand of God,
are not capable to be comprized under the erring
Axioms of Human Policy. As for Mahomet^ he
rolled on his untutored Rabble, by mixing Profit
and Rapine with his Religion, which he left un-
certain, grounding his Precepts upon Success, ever
owned as dropped upon them out of Heaven ;
making himself still confident of the Event, which
I cannot undertake, therefore unable in these
Aporetick Times, to give you better Counsel, than
to keep your Compliance so loose^ as if possible, you
may fix it to the best Advantage of your Profit
and Honour.

1 8. Nevertheless, tho* a high, palpable and
external Zeal is taken, by the present Age, as a
mark of Confidence, yet I cannot look upon it
with such Afiection, because screwed up to these
Altitudes in many by the Wooden Pins of
Worldly Respects : Not likely to hold longer in
Tune, than a Harmony can be made among all
Parties, now possibly at odds, or under a jealous
Aspect : Therefore I advise you to put no more
of it on, than with Decency you may divest, in

case

RELIGION 117

case the Fashion should alter, and the rich Die
the Wars have dipt it in, be rubbed off; since all
Customs rise or fall proportionable to the Ex-
change they make for the Preferments in the
State ; to which in Descretion you are bound to
suit your Obedience, tho* not your Conscience.
For I would have my Persuasions understood to
reach only to what is consonant to Religion ;
which doth not blind you to choak your Fortunes
with the Criticisms of such Postillers of the Age,
as value their Interpretations of Scripture above
Liberty or Life ; and by this over-weaning, one
Century makes Martyrs of those the Precedent
thought Hereticks, and such Liberators of their
Country, as were formerly held Traitors.

19. Keep then your Conscience tender, but not
so raw, as to wince and kick at all you under-
stand not ; nor let it baffle your Wit out of the
bounds of Discretion, as such do that suffer them-
selves to be moved by it : To prevent which,
keep Reason always in your Eye; whose Light
ought never to be lost in the worldly Action, and
but eclipsed in what relates to Heaven ; the
Tribunal of Conscience being erected in our Soul,
to detect our Miscarriages, not to betray our
well-being, and therefore subordinate not only to
a superlative Authority, but also our own honest,
safe and wholsom Conveniencies. Neither is Con-
science seldom misled by Education, Custom, and
the false Representations of Teachers, who be-
nighted in the dark Interests of Covetousness and
Ambition, seek to lodge others under the Roof of

such

ii8 ADVICE TO A SON

such Institutes as they believe not themselves, yet
employ all their Art, Sufficiency and Endeavour,
to make them pass for Authentick and the pure
Mind of God ; like Ji^Iers, that beguile our
Senses with what is not, to have the better
Opportunity to pick our Pockets of what is really
useful to themselves ; for as the more subtile
Wind got into the narrow and delicate Parts of
our Body, is able to act the Stone, Gout, and
other most acute Diseases, not really present ; so
doth Superstition represent in this changeable and
Concave Glass of a suborned Conscience, things
for Sinful, that are indeed but Natural and In-
different ; and other Pious, that are really Vain
and Destructive ; the prosecution of which leads
readily to Atheism, or an over-biassed Holiness,
which prosecutes all that carry the impress of any
contrary Tenets.

20. Fly that self murdering Tyrant Obstina^,
who, like our Witches, is not seldom found to
pamper the Imps of Heresie with their own
Blood ; being not only now, but from all Anti-
quity, able to bring Clouds of Witnesses to the
Stake, for the proof of the Wildest Opinions.
And, if I am not much mistaken, from the rever-
beration of her Heat, the Flames, of the Ancient
Persecutions, as well as those that followed, were
at least increased, if not kindled.

21. All Religions but ours, are accounted Idola-
trous ; and Idolatry is a Misprision of the true
Worship, in lieu of which some other is intruded
upon belief, more catching to Sense and auspicious

to

RELIGION 119

to Legislators Designs, than that purer Reverence
due only to the Honour and perfect Will of God :
Before which it is very ordinary with unsanctified
Politicians to interject such false mediums as may
flatter or terrifie their Subjects into an awful
Obedience of themselves and their Laws. There-
fore since nothing in External Worship can be
performed but in some posture^ or after this or
that manner^ which Unity and Time will soon
make general, and so concoct what was formerly
indifferent, in a Religious Ceremony ; by which
Superstition^ if not Idolatry^ hath stole into the
Romish Church; who by imposing a Necessity
upon what was at first possibly a mistake, or a
mere extravagancy, have bred such a Reverence
in their People toward things proceeding perhaps
from no higher inspiration than the breath of
Authority, that they expect no Salvation without
them ; which fond over-weaning may justly bring
many laudable Customs^ derived to us from an
unquestioned Ancient Tradition^ into the same
predicament the Brazen Serpent fell, when by the
Jews it was abused to Idolatry ; which tho' a Type
of our Saviour, was it self without question law-
fully disfigured: This makes me confess, that tho'
I Honour Ancient Tradition with the highest,
I cannot be of that Spirit to contest for her (or
against her) unto blood: But do rather believe
the cruel Contention begun between the Greek
and Latin Churches, about the time of Easter,
resulted from Ambition more than Piety, as may
appear by the unhappy Consequences of that

strife.

120 ADVICE TO A SON

strife. This may perswade to a Conformity with
such Governments, as shall explode former modes
used in the External Worship of God : The
Question, Who required these Things at your
Hands f May one Day prove as hard to Resolve,
and cause no less Astonishment than fell upon
him Interrogated, How earnest thou in hither^ not
having a Wedding Garment ? Understood of En-
dowments far more Essential to Salvation, than
any Human Constitutions can be.

22. As it is manifest, that most Princes and
Men in Power (the not unlikeliest to know Truth,
because it is suspected they did at first disguise
it) make no more account of Religion^ than the
Profit and Conveniencie it brings, is able to con>
pense ; so that the unbiassed Rabble^ if once
emancipated out of the Fetters, their former Creed
confined them to, value the Churchy as they do
the old Coins they dig up, which they take for
Counters, because they find them subject to
Rust, and are not able by reason of the Roman
Inscriptions {the Character of the Beast^ which
Opinion rather than Judgment imagines them
branded withal) to make them pass in the strict
Commerce of these intoxicated Times; whereby
they exchange that for baser Metal, which in it
self perhaps is pure Gold, only attached unhappily
by the Cankers and Corruption of the Age, easier
scoured off than melted*

23. But if S. Petef^s pretended Successor, the
Pope, be found guilty of such Erroneous Mistakes,
it cannot be so much, a Solecism in Reason with

our

RELIGION 121

our Seekers to place S, Thomas in the Chair ; be-
lievingi like him^ no more than lies patent to
Human Understandings which is as much as can
decently be imposed upon a new Believer without
a Miracle : Reason being all the Touchstone
besides left in our Hands, to distinguish this Gold
from the Dross, they pretend our Religion hath
contracted. The Scripture alone seeming unable,
by reason of her Readings, and the several Sounds,
variety of Expositions have put upon it, to decide
all Differences ; Besides the long aboad she hath
made at Rome (where who knows whether or no,
or how far that Bishop hath put in his Foot ?) may
render her in some Opinions, suspected, as par-
ticipating of the like Corruptions, we see manifested
in Translations : So as it may possibly be wished,
Learning had never taken her out of the Hands
of Tradition : Where for many Years she remained
with more quiet than ever she enjoyed since she
grew Domestical with all sorts of Understandings,
who have been connived at by the State (how
prudently I dare not determin) whilest they cut
her more short, or extend her longer, as best fitted
their Ends and Occasions. Now if Faith be not
allowed to be taken implicitly from the Authority
of any Church, a Freedom of Choice, by conse-
quence will result to all, by which Salvation must
be wrought out : And in this Wilderness of Con-
tention we have no better Guide to follow than
Reason, found the same for many thousands of
Years, tho' Belief hath been observed to vary
every Age. And since so considerable a Falshood

is

122

ADVICE TO A SON

is thought to be discovered by our Governors in
the Clergie's Tenet, for the impunity of Kings ;
why may not their poor Subjects be unsatisfied
about the Place they shall receive their own
Reward or Punishment in after this Life ; or what
else may befal these dusty Bodies of ours ? Yet
I say not this to diminish your Faith, but to
encrease your Charity towards tender Consciences^
if«dio may pretend cause enough to doubt, tho' my
single Judgment is still ready to determine for
Antiquity ; which I would have you Reverence,
but not conclude Infallible ; yet I should take her
Word sooner in Divinity than any other Learning,
because that is clearest at the beginning, all
Studies else more muddy, recdving Clarification
from Experience.

All Truth familiar unto Mortals is only legible
by the Eye of Reason^ Revelation^ Prophecy^ &a,
being Strangers now to Flesh, and ever too high
elevated for the perpetual Commerce of such weak
Creatures, who may sometimes enjoy a glimmering
of them, as the Northern Inhabitants do of the
Sun in Winter, not permanent longer than they
are able to Fan away the dark Clouds of Infidelity^
which dims their Light upon the Absence of the
Extasie : Whereas Reckon passeth in an Universal
Commerce, being of an unquestioned Alloy, and
therefore the likeliest to be the Oracles of the
everlasting God ; said by Solomon to have squared
the Bars of the Earth by her Rule^ and so not
improbably supposed to have measured out a way
to Heaven by her Line. S. Paul allows the

notice

RELIGION 123

notice of God's Universal Goodness for a sufficient
Evidence to convince the Disobedient Heathen ;
and may not the same as well save the faithful
Observers of the purer Law of Nature ? Shall the
Righteous Judge of all things be found with two
Weights, one to Save, an other to Damn by?
Reason only Commands Beliefs all things else Beg
it, so far as the most stupendious Miracles that
ever were, cannot Confute, tho' 'tis possible they
may silence it for a Time ; But Belief changeth,
and impairing or mending implies a wearing out
Imperfections ; Reason is uncapable of remaining
the same for ever, as the most faithful Guide to
our Maker.

24. It is no less worth your Observance than
Admiration, that some of the wild Indians, and
other People by us stiled Barbarous, are yet more
Strangers to the unsociable Sins of Improbity,
Covetousness, &c. than such as pretend to advance
their Conversion ; of which this may be a Reason,
That whilest they remain constant to the pure
Dictates of Nature, they imagine no Meditation
to secure their Hopes, or screen their Fears, con-
ceived to depend on another Life, but their own
Endeavours, which might give Paul an occasion
to pronounce them, a Law to themselves, and there-
fore possibly within the Compass of God's secret
Grace ; it being our Saviour's own Confession to
him that had kept the Commandments, that
nothing wanted but the Sale of his Propriety ; a
Term these understand not, having all in Common,
and if the last part be looked upon as omitted, I

would

124 ADVICE TO A SON

would fain know who follows his Master best» he
that comes loaden with what he is able^ and goes
as far as he can with him ; or else he that hath
lost it all, or is lazy and lies down by the Way ;
Acceptance being a far easier Grant than Pardon ?

25. Religions do not naturally differ so much
in themselves, as fiery and uncharitable Men pre-^
tend ; who do not seldom Persecute those of their
own Creed, because they profess it in other Terms*
Then do not only ask thy Conscience what is Truth,
but give her full leisure to resolve thee; for he
that goes out of the Way with her Consent, is
likelier to find rest, than he that plods on without
taking her Directions.

Therefore do nothing against the Counsel of
this Guide, tho' she is observed in the World to
render her Owners obnoxious to the Injury and
Deceit of all that converse without her ; Nothing
being more hard and chargeable to keep than a good
Conscience.

26. Let no seeming Opportunity prevail so far
upon your curiosity^ as to entice you to an inspection
into yoxxT future fortune ; since such inquisitiveness
was never answered with good Success : The
World like a Lottery, affording multitudes of
Crosses for one Prize; which reduced all into a
sum, must by a necessary consequence, render the
remainder of Life tedious, in removing present
Felicities, to make room for the Contemplation of
future Miseries*

Do not pre-engage Hope or Fear by a tedious
expectation, which may lessen the Pleasure of the

first

RELIGION 125

first, yet cannot but aggravate the weight of the
latter, whose arrival is commonly with a less train
of inconveniences, than this Harbinger strives to
take up room for, evil Fortune being no less incon-
stant than good: Therefore render not thy self
giddy, by pouring on Despair, nor wanton with
the Contemplation of Hope.

27. Stamp not the Impress of a Divine Ven-
geance upon the Death or Misfortunes of others,
tho' never so prodigious ; for fear of Penning a
Satyr against your self, in case you should fall
under the same chance : Many things being taken
up as dropped out of an immediate Celestial Hand,
that fell from no higher pitch than where God in
his Providence hath placed such Events, as wait
upon all times and occasions, which Prayers and
Prudence are not able always to shroud you from :
Since upon a strict Enquiry, it may appear, that
in relation to this Worlds the Godly have as little
cause to brag as the Wicked to complain.

28. Be not easily drawn to lay the foul impu-
tation of Witchcraft upon any, much less to assist
at their Condemnation^ too common among us ;
For who is suffidetit for these things, since we are
as ignorant in the Benevolences, as Malignities of
Nature ? Madmen presenting in their Melancholy
Extasies, as prodigious Confessions and Gestures,
as are objected to these no less infatuated People.
And if this humour hath so far prevailed with
some, as to take themselves for Urinals, Wolves,
and what not : Can it seem impossible for those,
invaded by all the causes of discontent, to imagine

themselves

126 ADVICE TO A SON

themselves Authors of what they never did ? Most
of these strange Miracles they suppose, being
hatched by the heat of Imagination, or snatched
out of the huge Mass of Contingences, such a
Multitude of Individuals as the World producetb,
cannot chuse but stumble upon ; neither may it
be admitted, with due Reverence to the Divine
Nature : That Prophecy should cease^ and Witches
so abound ; as seems by their frequent Executions ;
which makes me think the strongest Fascination
is encircled within the Ignorance of the Judg^es,
Malice of the Witnesses, or Stupidity of the poor
Parties accused.

29. Be not therefore hasty to Register all you
understand not, in the black Calender of Hell, as
some have done the Weapon-salve; passing by
the Cure of the Kin^s-Evil^ altogether as impro-
bable to Sense ; neither rashly Condemn all you
meet with that contradicts the common received
Opinion, lest you should remain a Fool upon
Record, as the Pope doth, that Anathematized
the Bishop of Saltsburgy for maintaining Antipodes ;
and the Consistory^ that may possibly attain the
same Honour, for decreeing against the probable
Opinion of the EartKs Motion ; since the branding
of one Truth imports more Disrepute than the
Broaching of ten Errors, these being only lapses
in the search of new Reason, without which there
can be no addition to Knowledge ; that, a murder-
ing of it, when by others greater Wit and Industry
it is begotten, not to be accounted less than an
unpardonable Sin against the Spirit of Learning.

Therefore

RELIGION 127

Therefore mingle Charity with Judgmenty and
temper your Zeal with Discretion^ so may your own
Fame be preserved, without intrenching upon that
of others.

Fall not out with Charity, tho' you find for the
most part Ingratitude lying at her Gate ; which
God hath contrived, the better to reserve Requital
to himself.

30. As he offers an high Indignity to the Divine
Nature that robs God of his Honour, by owning
Thoughts of him unsuitable to the Dictates of
Reason (the exactest Engine we have to measure
him by, out of the Volume of his Word ;) so doth
he offend no less against Probity that detains
anothers Due; contrary to Justice and the
Clamours of his own Conscience ; whereby he
makes himself and his Posterity Heirs to the
Curse, which the Wheel of Providence, moved
by the Breath of God's first Fiaty doth usually
stamp upon those, that endeavour to deface the
impress of Goodness and Equity, which appeared
in all things at the beginning. Therefore be not
forward to promote any destructive Tenets^ or
liquorish after such ill-gotten Estates, as the Law
of Power may for a small Sum be wooed to
possess you of, out of an Hope to engage you, or
a Fear they might revert, in case they were not
diffused amongst a multitude of Owners.

Make not Law, or the Power you may possibly
exercise in the Common-wealth, instrumental to
your private Malice ; No Murders being so bloody,
as those committed by the Sword of Justice.

31. Let

128

ADVICE TO A SON

31. Let not the Cheapness or Conveniency of
Church Lands tempt you to their Purchase ; for
tho', I have not observed Vengeance so nimble in
this World, as Divines pretend ; yet what Prudence
is there to submit all your future Success to be
measured out, by so severe Expositions, as Church-
Men usually make of Sacrilegious Persons^ which
all are Registered to be, that meddle with their
Revenues f Besides the Danger and Shame of
refunding, in case of contrary Zeal should repossess
the People ; whose Clamours and Warrant cannot
be thought less sufficient to obliterate your Title,
th^n the former ; Written as may be supposed,
with more Authentick Ink.

32. Denounce no enmity against the Clergy ;
for supported by Prayers or Policy, they cannot
long want an Opportunity to revenge themselves.
Neither oppose any Religion you find Established^
how ridiculous soever you apprehend it ; for tho'
like Davidf you may bring unavoidable Arguments
to stagger a Popular Error ; none but the Monster's
own Sword, can cut off the Head of one Universally
Received.

Run not hooting after evtrynew Light you may
observe to wander about, nor endeavour by a
tumultuous Dispute to puff it out : For he that
will not quench the smoking Flax^ may possibly
accept of a Lamp composed of no richer stuff than
Rushes.

33. Grudge not Tythes to the Teachers of the
Gospel, assigned for their Wages by the Divine
Legislator ; of whose Institutes this was none of

the

1

RELIGION 129

the least Profound, That the Tribe of Levi were
prohibited all other Revenue, than what was
deducible out of the tenth part of the other
Elevens Encrease: Setting bounds thereby to
all the Improvement, their Wisdoms, and the tie
the Priesthood had over the Peoples Consciences^
might in the future possibly make, in causing their
Maintenance to rise and fall, proportionable to the
general standard of the Nations felicity which this
limitation obliged them to promote, and for their
own sakes, to oppose all incroachments likely to
interrupt their Brethrens utility. This prompts
me to believe, that if the like Salary were assigned
here, we might promise to our selves the same
Success ; provided the Sovereign Power reserved
in their own Hands the collation of Benefices^ with-
out giving leave to any Stipendaries or Lecturers,
that signifies little less than an Anti-clergy : And
to perswade this, there may be more Reason, than
the narrow Project of this Discourse is able to find
room for.

34. Yet I cannot but by the way mind you of the
Superlative Wisdom of Moses^ who lest one Sacri-
legious injury should have proved a precedent for
a greater (had the People made a benefit by the
Spoil) imployed the Censers of Corah and his
Complices to make Plates for the Altar: But
finding the Gold of Idols too rank, decently to be
used in the Service of God, he reduced them to
Dust, and threw them into the River; lest the
Multitude having been fleshed on a Calf a false
Deity, should after assume the boldness to rob

I the

I30 ADVICE TO A SON

the true One, aod those his Institutes appointed
to live by his Service.

35. And here it may not improperly be said,
that Cardinal Wolsey was ignorant of, or had
forgot this Aphorism of Policy, when he pulled
down Monasteries to Build Colleges ; by which he
instructed that docile Tyrant Henry the Eighth to
improve the same : There being nothing forwarder
to demolish the results of Zeal and Ignorance than
Learning and Knowledge. Neither did he discover
himself a more accomplished Courtier, when he
laid the Foundation of a Grave for a living King ;
who could not be delighted with the sight of a
Tomb, tho' never so magnificent, having lived in so
high a Sensuality, as I may doubt, whether he
would then have Exchanged it for the Joys of
Heaven it self. I instance in this, as a fit
Example to disswade you from thinking it Dis-
cretion or Manners to use Funerous Discourses
before Princes or Men in Power ; who hate nothing
so much as the thought of their own Mortality,
and therefore unlikely to be pleased with the
Messengers of it

THE

THE CONCLUSION

1 . BEAR always a filial Reverence to your dear
Mothery and let not her Old Age^ if she attain it,
seem tedious unto you ; since the little she may
keep from you, will be abundantly Recompenced,
not only by the Prayers, and by the tender Care
she hath, and ever will have of you ; therefore in
case of my Death (which weariness of the World
will not suffer me to adjourn, so much as by a
wish) do not proportion your Respect by the Mode
of other Sons, but to the greatness of her Desert^
beyond Requital in relation to us both.

2. Continue in Love and Amity v/ithyour Sister,
and in case of Need, help her what you are able ;
Remembring,^<?« are of a Piece^^nA Hers and Yours
differ but in Name ; which I presume (upon want
of Issue) will not be denied to be imposed on any
Child of hers, you shall desire to take for your
own.

3. Let no time expunge his Memory that gave
you the first Tincture of Erudition ; to which he was
more invited by Love than Profit, no less than his
Incomparable Wife : Therefore if God make you

able,

132 ADVICE TO A SON

able, requite them, and in the mean while Register
their Names among those you stand most obliged
unto,

4. What you leave at your Deaths let it be with-
out Contraversie ; else the Lawyers will be your
Heirs.

5. Be not solicitous after Pomp at my Burial^
nor use any expensive Funeral Ceremony ; by
which Mourners^ like Crows^ devour the Living
under pretence of Honouring a Dead Carcase:
Neither can I apprehend a Tomb-stone to add so
great a weight of Glory to the Dead, as it doth
of Charge and Trouble to the Living ; None being
so Impertinent wasters^ in my opinion, as those
that build Houses for the dead ; He that lies
under the Herse of Heaven is convertible into
sweet Herbs and Flowers, that may rest in such
Bosoms, as would shriek at the ugly Bugs, may
possibly be found crawling in the Magnificent
Tomb of Henry the Seventh ; which also hinders
the variety of such contingent Resurrections as
unarched Bodies enjoy, without giving interruption
to That, which He that will not again Die, hath
promised to such as Love him and expect his
appearing : Besides, that Man were better for-
gotten, who hath nothing of greater Moment to
Register his Name by than a Grave.

Contest not with such Frantick People as deny
Men the Burial formerly called Christian ; since
unquietness importunes a Living Body more than
a Ceremony can advantage one that is Dead.
Neither be too rigid in giving or leaving out the

TiiU

THE CONCLUSION 133

Title of Sainty before their Names that appear in
the Scripture to have been really such : Since the
practice in both Senses, hath been often abused ;
the first to an over-esteem of the Creature, the
latter to the discouragement of Piety, through a
second Martyrdom inflicted upon the repute of
those, who laid down all Care of the World, if not
their lives, for the Gospel. Thus a wise Man may
convert the most putrid humours to a pious use,
or where this falls short of a good Conscience,
to eke it out with Patience, a far easier remedy,
than a less probable Contention. These and an
hundred other Changes ought not to disturb our
Rest, who are less interested in what can happen
after our Death, than in what was extant before
our birth, no Books being legible in the dark
Grave.

6. Neither can I apprehend such Horror in
Deathy as some do that render their Lives miser-
able to avoid it, meeting it oftentimes by the
same way they take to shun it. Death if he may
be guessed at by his elder Brother Sleeps (born
before he was thought on, and fell upon Adam
ere he fell from his Maker) cannot be so terrible
a Messenger, being not without much Ease if not
some Voluptuousness. Besides, nothing in this
World is worth coming from the House top to
fetch it, much less from the deep Grave; furnished
with all things^ because empty of Desires,

7. And concerning a future Account^ I find the
Bill to swell rather than shrink, by continuance :
Or if a stronger propensity to Religion resides in

Age

I

r

134 ADVICE TO A SON

Age, than Youth (which I wish I had no cause
to doubt of) it relates more to the temperature of
the Body, than an improvement of the Mind ;
and so unworthy of any other reward, than what
is due to the effects of humane infirmities,
t/ 8. To conclude, Let us Serve God with what

Reverence we are able, and do all the^is?t?^wecan,
making as little unnecessary work for Repentance,
as is possible : And the Mercy of our Heavenly
Father supply all our Defects in the Son of his
Love. Amen,

Thus I have left you finished {Dear Son) a
Picture of the World ; in this at leasty like it^ that
it is frail and confused ; being an Original, not a
Copy; No more foreign help having been employed
in ity than what my own miserable Experience had
imprinted in my Memory. And as you have by
trial already found the Truth of some of These^ so
I most earnestly beg of you to trust the rest, without
thrusting your Fingersjike a Childyinto those Flames,
in which your Father hath formerly been burnty and
so add by your own PurchasCy to the multitude of
Inconveniencies he is forced to leave you by Inherit-
ance,

Now You are Taught to Live^ there's nothing I
Esteem worth Learning but the way to Die,

THE END.

THE WORKS OF FRANCIS OSBORNE

1. *' Seasonable Expostulation with the Netherlands."
1652. 4to.

2. *' Persuasion to Mutual Compliance with the Present
Government. Plea. for a Free State compared with Mon-
archy.'' 1652. 4to.

3. '^Political Reflections upon the Government of the
Turks : with a discourse upon Machiavelli, etc : Observa-
tions upon the King of Sweden's Descent into Germany. A
discourse upon Piso and Vindex who conspired the death
of Nero. A discourse upon the greatness and corruptions
of the Court of Rome. Discourse upon the election of
Pope Leo XI. Political occasions for the defection from the
Church of Rome. A discourse in vindication of Martin
Luther. The private Christian's non ultra." Lond. 1656. 8vo.

4. "Advice to a Son." 2 Parts. Oxford, 1656-1658. 8vo.
5.* " Translation into English of an Italian's dialogue of

Polygamy and Divorce." Lond. 1657. Svo.

6. ** Historical Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth
and King James." Lond. 1658. 8vo.

7. " A Miscellany of Sundry Essays, &c., together with
PoUtical Deductions from the History of the Earl of Essex,
&C." Lond. 1659. i2mo.

* See Wood's AiJkena, i. 707, as to whether Osborne was really the
author of this, and as to other treatises attributed to him.

NOTES

To THE Reader.—^, /?, Hy etc,

B is Buckingham, D is Dr. Donne, and H is Hudibras, or
rather, Samuel Butler, the author of Hudibras,

1. I. — ^^ Sons of the menu^^

In the 1722 edition "Sons of the meny {ue, gentry).*'
Surely the meaning is rather the lower class or the middle
class as opposed to the gentry. Cp. menalty for the middle
classes, Nare^ Glossary; also meinyy a retinue or family of
servants, as in King LeoTy ii. 4 :

" They summoned up their meiny, straight took horse."

I. 4. — " The ped and company P

The 1722 edition has "the pedee {/.^. meanness of Birth)."
I can find no instance of the use of either form of the word.

I. 7. — " My memory reacheth the time^^ dr^c.

This is borne out by Aubrey in his Life of Mr. I'homas
Allen. He is writing of a somewhat earlier period, probably
the latter portion of Queen Elizabeth's reign, and says : " In
those dark times astrologer, mathematician, and conjuror
were accounted the same things, and the vulgar did verily
believe him [Allen] to be a conjuror. He had a great many

NOTES 137

mathematical! instruments and glasses in his chamber which
did also confirme the ignorant in their opinion ; and his
servitor (to impose on freshmen and simple people) would
tell them that sometimes he should meet the spirits comeing
up his stairs like bees."

I. 19. — " Men entered the Churchr <5*v.

These were Archbishop Laud's actual, words. The passage
is from a " Speech in the Star Chamber at the Censure of
John Bastwick, Henry Burton, and William Prinn," HarL
Misc, ix. 201. Laud is answering objections that have been
made to " bowing or doing reverence at our first coming into
the church or at our nearer approaches to the holy table."
" For my own part," he says in his speech, " I take myself
bound to worship with body as well as in soul, whenever I
come where God is worshipped. And were this kingdom
such as would allow no holy table standing in its proper
place (and such places sure there are), yet I would worship
God when I came into His house. And were the times such
as should beat down churches and all the ' curious carved
work thereof with axes and hammers,' as in Psalm Ixxiv. 6
(and such times have been), yet would I worship in what
place soever I came to pray, though there were not so much
as a stone laid for Bethel. But this is the misery : it is
superstition now-a-days for any man to come with more
reverence into a church than a tinker and his bitch come into
an ale-house J the comparison is too homely, but my just
indignation at the profaneness of the times makes me speak
it."

L 22.—" The Art of MusickP

Compare Chesterfield, Letters to his Son^ a century later,
where he writes in 1749 • " If you love music, hear it ; go to
operas, concerts, and pay fiddlers to play to you, but I insist
upon your neither piping nor fiddling yourself. It puts a
gentleman in a very frivolous, contemptible light, brings him

138 NOTES

into a great deal of bad company, and takes up a great deal
of time which might be much better employed. Few things
would mortify me more than to see you bearing a part in a
concert with a fiddle under your chin or a pipe in your
mouth."

I. 42. — Tobacco : " Nosing it or swallowing it down^^

The habit of taking tobacco in the form of snuff was first
popular in Europe in the Court of France in 1562. An
English doctor named Edmimd Gardner, in his Triall of
Tobacco y 1610, recommends snufTin these words : " Sternuta-
tories, especially those which are made of tobacco, being
drawn up into the nostrels, cause sneesing, consuming and
spending away grosse and slimie humors fix)m the ventricles
of the braine. These kind of remedies must needes doe
good where the braine is repleat with many vapours, for
those that have a lethargy or vertiginy, in all long griefes,
paines and aches of the head, in continuall senselesses or
benununing of the braine, and for a hicket that proceedeth
of repletion." SnufF-taking did not really become popular
in England until 1702, when Sir George Rook brought a
quantity of snuff from Vigo, taken as a prize from the
Spaniards ; and the popularity of the war, combined with
the novelty and excessive cheapness of the snuff, caused it to '
be generally used. — Fairholt's History of Tobacco,

I. 48. — Formed Duels.

Duelling seems to have been introduced from the Conti-
nent about the reign of Elizabeth, and to have become
rapidly popular in England in the reign of James I. Tybalt
is described as a duellist — Romeo andfuliet^ ii. 4 — ^and this
play was published in 1597 and written earlier. The allusion
to the "" immortal passado ! the punto reverso 1 *' looks as
though at this date duelling was scarcely an English custom.
It had become nationalised, however, by 161 5, in which

NOTES 139

year Bacon, then Attorney-General, brings before the Star
Chamber "Mr. William Priest for writing and sending a
challenge, and Mr. Richard Wright for carrying it " {Howell $
State Triads^ ii. 1039) ; and conmiences his charge thus :
" My lords, I thought it fit for my place and for these
times to bring to hearing before your lordships some cause
touching private Duels, to see if this Court can do any good
to tame and reclaim that evil which seems imbridled." He
speaks of duelling as a " mischief that groweth every day,"
and hopes that " men of quality will leave the practice when
it begins to be vilified and come so low as to barber surgeons,
and butchers, and such base mechanical persons." The
speech, which the Court declared to be "very meet and
worthy to be remembered and made known unto the world
as these times are," traces the history of authorised combats,
and lays down the law against those inciting to duelling, as
well as against the principals, in stringent terms. Sir Edward
Coke, then Lord Chief Justice, is ordered by the Star Chamber
to report the law in print, " that such as understand not the
law in that behalf and all others may better direct themselves
and prevent the danger thereof hereafter." This or similar
law was embodied by Cromwell in a statute passed in 1654.

II. 3. — " Cadds or Familiers^^

This use of the word is obsolete, and Murray thinks its
identity with the modem "cad" improbable. He quotes
this passage and one from Bishop King's Poems (1657) :

" Rebellion wants no cadd nor elfe,
But is a perfect witchcraft of itself."

The word seems to have been synonymous with " familiar."

\\.Z.— ''Debenture.''

This figurative use of the word is not unknown. Swift has
it in the following passage :

I40 NOTES

** Your modern wits, should each man bring his claim,
Have desperate debentures on your fame.
And little would be left you, I'm afraid,
If all your debts to Greece and Rome were paid."

The original commercial meaning of debenture seems to
have been " a Custom-house certificate entitling an exporter
of imported goods to a drawback of duties paid on their
importation.''

III. 3. — "Af the common beamP

"The common beam'' or "the King's beam" were
phrases used for the public standard balance, formerly in
the custody of the Grocers' Company of London. " To take »

up at the conunon beam " means to be compelled to pay full ]

duties for full and accurate weights. Cp. Murray s Dictionary^
quoting the MS. Records of the Grocer^ Company : " Weying
the same marchandise at ther owne beeme and not at the
common beeme." The results of these two operations are
not always similar, even in our own time.

III. 10.—" The character Philip de Comines gives^^ &*c.

This is probably a reference to the following passage in
Philip de Comines' Memoirs : " And certainly, as I have
said before, the English do not manage their treaties and
capitulations with so much cunning and policy as the French
do, let the people say what ihey will, but proceed more
ingeniously and with greater straightforwardness in their
affairs ; yet a man must be cautious and have a care not to
affront them, for it is dangerous meddling with them." —
Andrew Scoblis Translation^ book iv. ch. 9.

III. II.—" This M. Mole/oundy" &^c.

The story of Mr. John MoUe is both strange and tragic. The
best account of it is to be found in Fuller's Church History^
book X, sect. 3. It appears that in 1607 Mr. John MoUe, who

NOTES 141

came from South Molton in Devonshire, and had served in
Brittany under Sir Thomas Shirley, was appointed by Lord
Exeter governor or tutor to his grandson, Lord Roos, who
was to travel abroad. Molle did not intend to pass the Alps.
" But," continues Fuller, " a vagary took the Lord Roos to
go to Rome ; though some conceive this motive had its root
in more mischievous brains [? those of Sir P. M., whose
identity I cannot discover]. In vain doth Mr. Molle dissuade
him, grown now so wilful he would in some sort govern his
governor. What should this good man do ? To leave him
were to desert his trust ; to go along with him to endanger
his own life. At last his affection to his charge so prevailed
against his judgment that unwillingly willing he went with
him." Arrived at Rome, no sooner had they entered their
inn than officers of the Inquisition seized upon Molle and
carried him to prison. The Lord Roos was meanwhile
feasted, favoured, and entertained. ''The pretence and
allegation of his so long and strict imprisonment was because
he had translated Du Plessis' book of T^ Visibility of
the Church out of French into English ; but besides there
were other contrivances therein not so fit for a public rela-
tion." What these may have been I cannot discover. Efforts
were made to exchange him for one or more Jesuit priests,
but all these came to nothing. He remained a prisoner for
thirty years, and was only once allowed to be visited by an
Englishman — a Mr. Walter Strickland, of Boynton House,
Yorkshire, who saw him in prison in the presence of an Irish
priest. He died in captivity in the hands of the Inquisition,
in the eighty-first year of his age — " a constant Professor of
Christ's cause."

III. i^.—The Penner of ^'Practice ofPietyJ*

The penner or writer of this volume was Bayly Lewis,
Bishop of Bangor, who died in 1631. Professor Tout, in his
article on Lewis in the Dictionary of National Biography,
says that his chief claim to fame is the fact that he was

142 NOTES

AMXhor ai Practice of Piely. "This was published early in
the century, and obtained at once the extraordinary popu-
larity that it long maintained in Puritan circles. The date
of its first publication is not known, but in 1613 it had
reached its third and in 1619 its eleventh edition, and in
1735 a fifty-ninth edition." It was translated into Welsh,
French, German, and Polish. " It rivalled The Whole Duty
of Man in a popularity that soon went beyond the bounds of
party. It was part of the scanty portion that Bunyan's wife
brought to her husband's house, and to its perusal he ascribes
the first dawn of his fervid spiritual experiences. A Puritan
minister complained that his flock looked upon it as an
authority equal to the Bible." The passage Osborne refers
to is probably this : "As thou eatest the bread imagine that
thou seest Christ hanging upon the Cross and by His un-
speakable torments fully satisfying God's justice for thy sins :
and strive to be as verily partaker of the spiritual grace as of
the elemental signs."— PriarftVe ofPietyy ii. 217, ed, 1808.

III. 14. — "Adfiso."

Information; intelligence (obs.); sense retained in" Advice."
— Murray s Dictionary.

III. i^.—" upon the by."

Form of " By-the-by," meaning by a side way, on a side

issue, as a matter of secondary or subsidiary importance,

incidentally, casually (obs.). Cp. Butler, Hudibras^ iii. (i)

60s:

" All he does upon the By
She is not bound to justify."

Murray s Dictionary.

IV. 17.—" The incomparabU Dr. D ."

This was Dr. Donne, who was secretary to the Lord
Chancellor Egerton from 1596 to i6oa The reason of his

NOTES 143

dismissal is told in John Manningham's Diary, under date
1602. "Donne is undone," he writes. "He was lately
secretary to the Lord Keeper, and cast off because he would
match himself to a gentlewoman against his lord's pleasure."
This was the true cause of Donne's dismissal, the lady being
Anne More, a niece of Lord Egerton's second wife. Donne
married her clandestinely when he was twenty-seven and she
only sixteen. Lord Egerton would, it appears, have over-
looked the error with an admonition, but the lady's relatives
demanded and obtained the more severe punishment, and
Donne was dismissed. So far from Lord Egerton being
glad to part with Donne, Walton says that on his leaving
the Chancellor said, " He parted with a friend and such a
secretary as was fitter to serve a king than a subject." Who
T. B. was I cannot discover, unless he was one Mr. Thomas
Bone, who writes to Sir John Egerton in 161 5 an interesting
account of the trial of Anne Turner for the murder of Sir
Thomas Overbury. — Egerton Papers^ Camden Society^ p. 470.

IV. 21. — " The friend Seneca brags of-

n

Probably the passage Osborne had in mind was that in
Epistle iii., thus rendered in Lodge's translation : " But let
me tell thee this, that if thou thinkest to have a friend in
whom thou wilt not put as much confidence as in thyself,
thou deceivest thyself very much and understandest not
sufficiently the force of true amitie: deliberate all things
with thy friend, but first of all resolve thyself that he is thy
friend." Or a similar passage in Epistle xlviii. : " Friendship
maketh a mutual interchange of all things between us,
neither hath any one of us in particular a felicity or adversity
but they are communicable to both."

IV. 22. — " Merrick his steward and Cuffe his secretary!^ 6r*c,

Sir Gilly Merrick, steward to the Earl of Essex, and
Henry Cuffe, his secretary, were tried and executed for

144 NOTES

complicity in the treason of the Earl of Essex in i6oa
From the account of the trial in Howell's Slate Trials, i.
1415, it seems dear that Sir Gilly Merrick toot an active
part in fortifying Essex House and preparing weapons and
ammunition for the rebellion. One curious piece of evidence
that told strongly against him was that he " and some others
of the Earl's tr^n having an humonr to see a play they must
needs have the play of Henry IV. The players told them
that was stale, they should get nothing by their playing of
that, but no play ebe would serve ; and Sir Gilly gives 40
shillings to Philip the player to play this, besides whatsoever
he could get" Philip's own deposition, however, shows that
the play asked for and acted was the " playe of the deposyng
and kyllyng of Kyng Rychard the Second." It was not
Shakespeare's play. Henry Cuffe does not seem to have
taken any active part in the conspiracy. As he put it at the
trial: "If my being within Essex House the dayof the
Reb^ion be a foundation to charge me with High Treason
you may as well charge a lion that is within a grate with
treason." Mr. Attorney-General Coke, with brutal pleasantry,
" still following the matters strongly against him, told Cuffe
that he would give him a cuff that should set him down," and
proceeded to use as evidence against him the confessions of
other conspirators. Cuffe was, said Wood, a " most excellent
Grecian," He was a Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, and
Master of Arts, and at one time Greek Professor at the
University. He was hanged at Tyburn, March 30, 1601,
and buried obscurely without any memorial. Wood, how-
ever, gives us a quaint and simple epitaph " made by one
that knew him well " :

NOTES 145

IV. 23.—" As happened to the Duke o/lJorfolk^ Sir

Gervase Elvis i^ &»c.

The complicity of Thomas Howard, fourth Duke of
Norfolk, in a conspiracy with Spain was discovered by the
indiscretion of his secretary, who entrusted to a Shrewsbury
merchant a bag of gold containing a letter in cypher. This
came to the ears of Cecil, and was the means of the plot
being discovered. Sir Gervase Elvis, or Helwys, was the
Lieutenant of the Tower implicated in the murder of Sir
Thomas Overbury. At his trial a most serious piece of
evidence against him was that of an apothecary named
Franklin, who said that he had seen a letter hrom Helwys
to the Countess of Somerset, in which he wrote of Overbury :
^'This scab is like the fox who the more he is cursed the
better he fareth." This sufficiently explains the allusion.

IV. 30.—"^ quicksand wherein Cok e J*

This refers probably to the malignity and scurrility with
which Coke conducted the prosecution of Sir Walter Raleigh
at Winchester in 1603 — HowelFs State Trials^ vol. ii. p. i.
After alluding to Raleigh as '* the notoriest Traitor that ever
came to the bar," and *'a monster" with *'an English
face but a Spaysh heart," the Attomey-General speaks of
Raleigh's conduct as " the most horrible practices that ever
came out of the bottomless pit of the lowest hell." His
address concludes in the following dialogue between counsel
and prisoner :

•• Att. You are the absolutest Traitor that ever was.
Raleigh. Your phrases will not prove it.

• « • • «

If my Lord Cobham be a Traitor, what is that to me?

Att. All that he did was by thy instigation, for I thou thee, thou
Traitor.

Raleigh. It becometh not a man of quality and virtue to call me
so. But I take comfort in it, it is all you can do.
Att. Have I angered you?

K

\^

\i

146 NOTES

Raleigh. I am in no case to be angry.

C. J. PoPHAM. Sir Walter Raleigh, Mr. Attorney speaketh oat of
the zeal of his duty for the service of the long, and you for your life ;
be valiant on both sides."

IV. 31—" Tks Goal Keeper of his partyP

This passage is interesting to compare with Clarendon's
estimate of Hampden as a debater. " He was not a man of
many words, and rarely began the discourse or made the
first entrance upon any business that was assumed ; but a
very weighty speaker, and, after he had heard a full debate
and observed how the House was like to be inclined, took
up the argument, and shortly and clearly and craftily so
stated it that he conunonly conducted it to the conclusion
he desired ; and if he found he could,not do that, he never
was without the dexterity to divert the debate to another
time, and to prevent the determining anything in the nega-
tive which might prove inconvenient in the future." — History^
iii. 31-

V. I. — ^^ For if Brightman-

n

Thomas Brightman the divine, the friend of Sir John
Osborne. He wrote a voluminous work entitled ^^A Revela^
Hon of the Apocalypse^ containing an exposition of the whole
book of the Revelation of St John, Illustrated with Analysis
and Selections, wherein the sense is opened by the Scriptures
and the event of things foretold shewed by History." This
was published in Latin in 1609, and afterwards translated*
In this volume the fall and destruction of the enemies of the
Church are foretold and are to happen prior to 1650. A
writer in 1644 — ^becoming nervous for Brightman's reputation
as a prophet—proposes to put the date forward another
thirty-five years on the ground that Brightman was mistaken
in his interpretation of " the woman flying into the wilder-
ness." Expositions of the Revelations had a considerable
reading public at this date.